Commemorating the death of Licence Raj

In a short less than fiveminute clipping Sadanand Dhume a writer and journalist based in Washington recalls the years he spent growing up in India ldquoI remember we got a car one of the first few Marutis The Maruti 800 we got was called a deluxe car Why was it deluxe Because it had seat belts It had an air conditioner which never really worked and what worked didnt work so well And it had seat belts And the idea that a small little car could be called DX or deluxe because it had seat belts told you a little bit about what India was like in those yearsrdquoThe CCS team with Neeraj Aggarwal left and Parth Shah extreme right In July they hope to launch a coffee table book with stories and photos from the period PicAjay GautumThose years Years of want as Dhume terms them are now finding their place in Indian memory thanks to a crowdfunding initiative by Delhibased thinktank Centre for Civil Society founded in 1997 by Parth J Shah a former professor of economics at the University of Michigan Speaking over the phone from Delhi he asks ldquoDo you know that half of India was born after 1991rdquo The year is significant in Indian history Itrsquos the year that Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated Itrsquos also the year that Congress leader PV Narasimha Rao stepped into the prime ministerial role to fill the vacuum at the Centre and initiated economic reforms with support and advise from Dr Manmohan Singh P Chidambaram and Jairam Ramesh to liberalise the economy The result of their efforts is that today you can walk into a bike or car showroom swipe a card and ride out on your latest purchase In the pre1991 era this would have taken eight yearsMost of the stories shared on the website discuss the scarcity of goods and services For instance how it would take years to get a scooter right or even a phone connection Those travelling overseas would also have to mention the serial number of the camera they were carrying leftShah born in 1961 recalls the story of his father Jayantilals first scooter purchase ldquoHe graduated in 1958 and decided to buy one He paid the local dealer At the time the wait for a scooter was eight years and you had to pay the full price upfrontrdquo Giving us time to express our shock he continues ldquoIn the meanwhile he got married My mother had a brother in America The policy at the time was that if you paid the price in dollars you could jump the queue He withdrew his first application and applied for another scooter this time paying in dollars He got his vehicle in less than a yearrdquoShah explains why the era from 1959 to 1990 was called Licence Raj In short not just did companies need a licence to produce something they needed to justify why they intended to produce what they produced It gets worse There was also a cap on how much one could produce mdash no less but also no more For example a company producing scooters would not be allowed to produce more than a certain number every year Thus it was the incredible time when a vehicle bought at say R30000 at the showroom could be sold for Rs 50000 outside of itLest these stories be forgotten Shah and the team at CCS have launched a website called Indiabefore91 where stories from the period are being shared While the likes of Jairam Ramesh Shashi Tharoor and author Gurcharan Das have shared their memories CCS wants to reach out to a diverse audience To achieve this they have announced a fellowship calling for applicants from across the countryAlready the site has a few videos and texts stories from the period CCS has also uploaded pictures cartoons and newspaper cuttings from the era that illustrate their pointThe exercise of hunting for stories will continue till July after which the team hopes to windup operations and convert all the data gathered until then into a coffeetable bookldquoWe want people to go out and interview those who have stories to tell from this era We are not looking for any qualificationsrdquo says IITDelhi graduate Neeraj Aggarwal who has been working on the project with CCS since it began in October 2015 Aggarwal born in 1991 is as amazed as the projectrsquos target audience at the stories collected mdash from farmer Atar Singhrsquos recollection of how sugar would be a luxury to stories by Mohit Sadanand and CCS member Premila Nazareth on the caps on foreign travelBoth Sadanand and Nazareth recall how the Reserve Bank of India would allow a maximum of 100 to be carried as foreign exchange on a trip overseas ldquoSo you had to make all kinds of elaborate arrangements with relatives and other friends for money to be kept there for you to then use when One of my clearest memories is of my grandmother a very tiny little old lady stitching rolled up dollars into the hem of her sari skirtAndthere was always this fear that you are in violation of some law or the other or could be caught So travelling abroad was never a joyful experience it was always an experience wrapped in some kind of nervousness that you might get caught or you might run out of money overseas For me this is really one of the biggest changes post 91rdquo