By Meghalee Nath
Its Independence Day….India has entered its 67th year of colonial freedom…but the question arises..Have we truly attained freedom? Yes, we have achieved freedom from the long oppressive British rule, but isn’t freedom more than just freeing ourselves from some foreign domination?
Sixty seven years, and still we are counted among the third world nations. Why? While the other victim nations of colonialism have come a long way since their independence, why is our country still lagging behind? While the country’s politicians take pride in the so called achievements and developments, the nation still totters under the abyss of corruption, greed, heinous crimes, lawlessness, and narrow mindsets to name a few. The oppression of the colonial rule had made us fight for justice, for our dignity, so isn’t it the call of the day that we do so now in our present conditions. We still keep hearing about dowry deaths, female feticide, and child marriage. We talk about gender equality, but what kind of equality is this where the family persuades a wife, a mother a daughter in law to abort its girl child. Of course we have opened a lot of schools and colleges and produced lots of graduates and post graduates but could we really impart education in its true sense?
Education, according to Vivekananda, should make us humans. Today, we think twice before extending a helping hand. We have forgotten to respect our elders. We have no compassion for those who are suffering. Do more and more degrees make us less and less humane? We call India a secular nation but we divide ourselves on the basis of caste, creed and community. While we try to portray ourselves as a country of religious solidarity and brotherhood, we fight amongst ourselves in the name of caste, creed and community- or allow people with vested interests to make us fight. Every day we hear about news of rapes, acid attacks and killings. The wrong doers roam about freely while instead of empathizing with the victims, we outcast them. A slow judiciary system may not deny you justice but it is always delayed. We keep on hearing about high profile cases not being sorted out for more than a decade. Needless to say, the plight of a common man goes without saying.
What I am saying is nothing new. It’s been said by every other person. But now that we are a week away from celebrating our Independence Day, I am unable to feel the euphoria that a free person of a free country feels. While everywhere there are posters, messages and patriotic signs of our tri colored flag fluttering, I am in a state of confusion as to whether I should feel good and proud about this coming occasion, or just like any other person pay no heed to it. In fact that’s what I decided to do…then I got a message from one of the messaging sites stating.. ”Aaj 8th August se 15 August tak is Indian Flag ko apne messaging site par profile picture bane ke rakhe..or fir dekhiye aapka phone ke contact me jab sab ki messaging picture mein flag laga hoga to kitna aacha feel hoga..after all we are Indians yaar..”
The message sounded as if by putting the flag I will become a good citizen who is proud of being an Indian. Instead I am appalled by this feeling. Yes I’m proud to be in a country with so many cultures, so many religions, so many diversities as well as a rich past to fall back on. To be in a land of great men, to learn about our heroes who have fought for India. To have great poets writing poems on a golden India…but what has happened? Is this what our freedom fighters have actually fought for? Their souls must be saddened to see our people reeling under poverty, under ignorance and fighting over petty things so many years after freedom.
An India of Tagore’s poem “where the mind is without fear and the head is held high….” Is what we should have achieved. But in today’s context can we say with confidence that out mind is without any fear? Can we say that our world has not been broken by narrow domestic walls? Is this the India where people shun their logic while killing one another in the name of religion. Is this what Tagore had in mind while composing the poem. The India Tagore envisioned is still shackled and in deep slumber. So unless these negative factors weighing down the progress of the country are got rid of, India’s Independence ceases to have any real meaning. India has still not woken up into that heaven of freedom.