A young Indian’s view of the Independence Day

Being part of a generation that never knew life in a colonized state, a generation for whom the struggle for independence was nothing more than a few history chapters; every Independence Day makes me wonder how can we truly celebrate this day when we never knew the ‘dependent’ life. People might say that it is the idea of independence that deserves celebration, true, I admit that this is the single most important day in the history of India and if any day deserves to be celebrated then it is this day. What I’m talking about is its significance, what we feel about it.

The pain and struggle of forefathers has long lost its significance in our day to day lives. Few people even know the name of those freedom fighters who don’t have a holiday commemorate their sacrifice, the kin of freedom fighters have to run from door to door to get pension for their families. All these shows that even to our fathers’ generation independence struggle has lost its relevance, so it is only logical that our generation wonders whether Independence Day truly means anything more than a holiday.

I’m no expert in history and most of my knowledge comes from my class 10 books and by watching much dramatized versions of our independence struggle made by Bollywood. So with my very limited knowledge let me make a comparison between what I know happened then and what I see happening now.

When I look around I see poverty, women and even children getting raped, people arrested for speaking their thoughts and a rampant corruption. As far as I know these issues were widespread during the British period, they took our money, didn’t let us enjoy basic rights, and raped our women and children; so shouldn’t independence have freed us of these vices? Or did we just fight for our independence so that few of our own can loot our money in place of the British? Or has the freedom of basic rights been snatched from them just to be held ransom by few of our own? You might say I’m just focusing on the negatives, well since I’m able to focus on them they must be still present.

Well before you start hating me and branding me an antinational let me lay before you what I feel about independent India. India as someone once famously put it is the ‘world’s unlikeliest democracy’. With her ensemble of cultures, religions and people; perhaps even the British had not hoped that India, as a country, will still be ticking today, and therein lies our true success. What I feel today is that the enemy has changed, the position of the British has been taken by some of our own. And the sad part is that, it seems they are winning. As for who are they? They are everywhere they range from our corrupt netas to the traffic constable you gave 50rs to avoid being booked. In short every single person who holds back India is they. Even you must admit that if every single Indian stays true to India, all our problems would be over by the next Independence Day.

 It saddens me to see that sometimes some of the foreigners are more Indian than us. So its high time we stop being alien in our own country, get up get our hands dirty for yet another war for independence. This time the enemy is within us, they often fight from the shadows; but then again if our forefathers could then so can we and If we succeed in doing so then India will dominate the world again ‘...even without having to send a single soldier across her border.’