India turned 60 today. Lot of hype is being created in the media. All news channels, or any other channel for that matter, playing patriotic songs and flashing photographs from the days of freedom struggle throughout the day. I always fail to understand one point!! Why so much of emotions and reactions only during Independence day or Republic Day alone?? Why cant we have the same steady feeling for the country throughout the year?? Why cannot we sing the national anthem or Vande Mataram everyday?? Why don't TV channels broadcast these at least once a day?? I will be happy even if we show 1% of the emotions we show during these days, throughout the year but on a consistent basis!! I am not claiming to be a great patriot or anything. But then, I do not involve myself in what I know as False Patriotism. As someone rightly said, "Patriotism is not short frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the steady and tranquil dedication of a lifetime." In my case, I don't belong to any of the two groups. Now that doesn't mean that I do not love my motherland. Of course I do love but I just don't express it!!
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Last night when I was walking near my house, I found a group of people making arrangements for the Independence Day celebrations!! They had made a makeshift flag post, they were neatly cleaning and decorating the areas near the flag post. They had decorated the flag post with the Indian colours. They were just installing it in the ground. A small distance away was a set of small children stapling small flags to a long rope, so that it can be hung on the wall, in front of their houses. We all do it during religious festivals, but seldom have I seen people spending their hard earned money for national festivals like that. Considering that they were not from a well to do family, impressed me even more. What do we, the so called great and educated people of India do on Independence Day or Republic Day? Frankly speaking, we just take it as another holiday. We wake up late in the morning and just go about doing everything else. We go for a picnic or an outing. At least on this day, we should remember our freedom fighters without whom we never know where we would have been today!! Now that doesn't mean only remember the freedom fighters of the pre independence era. We also need to remember the brave jawans who have sacrificed their lives for the security of the country. I am talking about those valiant soldiers who have laid down their lives during the wars against China, Pakistan and even internally against terror groups like LTTE, Naxals etc..
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Mahatma Gandhi was definitely great and deserves to be the Father of the Nation. But I strongly feel that India has gained freedom not because of his Ahimsa or non violence. He was great because he was able to have a huge number of people behind him. Of course this public support had been gained by virtue of Ahimsa, but then, if someone like Subhash Chandra Bose or Sardar Vallabbhai Patel had gathered even a tenth of that support, they would have driven the British away long before they left!! All these ideals of Ahimsa so not find any relevance in today's situation. Considering the fact that the basic values of life namely trust and faith are absent, Ahimsa is totally irrelevant. It may have been portrayed quite well in the movie Lagey Raho Munnabhai but at the end of the day, its only a movie!!
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Coming to the real question now. After 60 years of independence, where are we today and where are we headed?? In these 60 years, we have not been able to eradicate poverty. There are still millions of people below the poverty line. We have not been able to improve literacy levels. Unemployment is still a threat to the society. There was a time, couple of decades ago when people were so fed up with the politics and corruption that, they wished India had not gained independence. At least, the British were good in administration. Though after the reforms of 1991 and the era of Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh, things have started to change for the better. The liberalisation and opening up of the global economy is a ray of hope. Things were taken up further by the Vajpayee government and is in a right track under this government also. One good thing to be observed in the last two decades is that even though ruling parties have changed every 5 years, major strategies have remained the same. They have persisted with same strategies on major issues and this has set the wheel rolling in the right direction. So all going well, we should be able to realise the dream envisioned by our former president Kalam. God willing, there should not be any problem in India becoming a developing country by 2020!!
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