Let my country awake

India celebrates her 68th Independence day today. Hard struggle by a generation that sacrificed its luxuries for its future generations, bore fruit on 14th August 1947 at midnight. Like our first prime minister put it, it was a “tryst with destiny”. 67 years have passed since. And now we are staring at a new India. An India which is young, restless, impatient, selfish and to a certain degree indifferent. Albeit, there are many who swear by their love for India and are ready to sacrifice their lives for the nation, but how many are ready to LIVE and participate in the act of nation building?

You will call me a cynic, but i simply cannot accept that present condition of India is in any way “great”. I agree when you point out India’s achievements to me. Science, technology, industry,economy, in every sector India is making her presence felt. But however the fact that a majority of the Indian population is still untouched by the wheels of development trivialises these achievements. In our attempts to show our love for our nation we cannot turn a blind eye to them. If we do so, and just keep ranting India is great, Jai Hind, we will defeat the purpose of independence.

India has a big heritage. The future has to shoulder the responsibility of matching the standards of the generations that lived in this nation. The people of India have failed to match the immense stature of our motherland, and if we do not act now, we will have no answers when we face our descendants. Even small acts can add to the process of nation building, solutions to “burning issues” like Naxalism and Kashmir can come later.

Let us start by teaching the child of the house maid, by donating our old books to the needy, by donating blood, by refusing to yield money to escape legal tangles or get files passed. We can in our own capacity build a new India, which resides in our homes not the corridors of power. For it is the power of the people that won us independence not the speeches of the leaders.

A famous Bengali poet once said, “bolo bolo bolo sobe……Bharat abar jogot sabhaye shrestho ashon lobe (let us all pledge to make India best among nations)“. What could be a better closing line for this post.