Independence Day

This day we are proud to celebrate our 64th independence day. The day we remember our great freedom fighter's. Hero's of the past. The day we are proud about our culture our tradition etc etc and probably the only day we feel patriotic, may be because the day is a holiday. And we are not consumed with work on this day since it is a national holiday.

I had a long long thought about the actual meaning of independence. Is it independence in expression of thought, speech and action? Is it the independence from exploitation? is it the freedom to decide our own fate?

Was thinking for a long time. We were fighting for Independence effectively from 1885 with the formation of INC. I mean effectively because the struggle for independence actually got channelised only after the formation of INC. Even during that time there were many and many Indians who were supporting the British rule in India. Educated Indians who did not even know they were being looted. Educated Indians who believed that industrial revolution of western Europe will be brought to India by the British.

Most of them did not understand that the industrial revolution of Europe was only possible with the wealth drained from India and if British were not here it would have been there in India with the wealth and resource we had. Once a rich country was hounded by famines after famines, and drain after drain. The farmers, peasants, artisans and all the common men were sucked off their blood, without our self knowing it. Thanks to the drain theory proposed by Dada bhai navroji we came to know it. By that time 200 years of British rule has already passed.

So does independence actually means, independence from this exploitation?

Stats say that there were on an average of around 18000 farmer deaths per year in India between 2002 and 2006 alone. Almost one lakh farmers in just 4 years. And the recent stats are not available on this. Which raises question in me, Are the farmers being exploited by us more than even the British exploited them. Government of India is reluctant to introduce food security bill on a global scale because of lack of availability of enough food grains. so the question still remains.

After the moderate phase of the feroz shah mehta's, dada bhi navoji's, gokale's came the extremist phase of tilak, who roared "swaraj is my birth right and i shall have it". Propounded about self sustainability and home rule. The struggle was carried forward by Gandhiji. He believed in passive resistance, changing the heart of an enemy also by making him understand the rationality of our struggle. There were people in India who changed the heart of even the enemy. Gandhiji was the first one in India to bring the government to a stand still by methods such as hunger strike, darnal, shutdown(bandhs), non-cooperation etc. Still these are the methods used by even the modern day politicians. Probably the only thing they picked up from the freedom struggle.

Along with the non violent freedom fighters were people like bhagat singh, chandra sekhar azad, sukhdev, Netaji subhash chandra bose etc all of whom redefined the term sacrifice and took sacrifices to the next level. Even without the support from the main stream politicians of the congress they did a commendable work in spreading the nationalistic views to the common masses. Finally on this very day 64 years back after a lot of sacrifices and hardships independence was declared. Still there are people in india who attribute the withdrawal of British from India to the loss Britain attained in the second world war. But can we forget the pressure built on the British slowly but steadily by the freedom fighters.

So is it this freedom which allows the people to comment and criticise our own leaders is what independence means. Today there are cases filed against a string of people, some social activists, some political opponents for speaking out what they are not supposed to speak against the modern day government's. Encounters done against civilians for their actions again describing that they are against the government. Do we really have the freedom of expression in this modern day independence era. So the question still remains.

Immediately after the independence there was a huge task ahead for our leaders. To bring back the communal harmony after been torn apart into two countries and all the blood that was spilt. And to create a constitution to hold a country and to take it to the future. A highly commendable work was done indeed, simple proof is the existence of democracy even after 64 years of independence. We have easy references to verify, the way our neighbours perform. Consider our neighbours Pakistan and Bangladesh. Torn ed mostly by military regimes and communal violence's. But still we stand our ground. Secularism, socialism, republic and democracy, we see in the heart of our constitution. And laws are made to reflect these principles.

Is it the freedom that we had shaping up our own future do we call as independence? Yes indeed the future was shaped which promised a lot. All appropriate rights were given. And future laws to be proposed were given directives. One of the directives is to abolish consumption of intoxicating drinks as per article 47. But today the sad state is 25 percent of the state revenue is being generated by the sale of liquor in the state by the state for the people. So the question still remains. What is that we say as independence?

No doubt we had a glorious triumph but are we in the right way of preserving that. Farmer suicides, naxalism, increasing poverty, lack of food security, 8 states declared to be poorer than the mid African states .etc all these issues apart. Imagine if we are born in afghan. Here the right to decide is in our own hands. And we have the obligation of saving the great work done by our freedom fighters. It is to us people to whom this constitution was given and it will be a sin if we forget the obligation we have in our hands. Independence cannot be realised in just celebrating it. It has to be preserved and cherished. So there is a long way to go before we actually realise it

-Jai Hind

Maharajan N