Independence Day Of A Birthday Girl

Every independence day goes by with the same old rituals....Parades, hoisting flags and rhetoric speeches by Prime Ministers listing the achievements of this nation and the goals we need to strive for...Of lately, we change our dps to the tricolour, take on some marathons and if we are keen enough also update our status quoting from the PM's speech...Other than that, it is yet another lazy day to chill out....

It is infact a laudable fact that this nation and its people particularly, have survived a myriad of crises-poverty, censorships,bans,lynchings,delays of justice, the emergency, insurgencies,intolerance and imposed cultural nationalism,to list a few-and are part (or not) of the fastest growing economy (or may be not so after a famous midnight announcement)of the world...The PM's speech never fails to highlight the factors that led to the latter even if the former is forgotten...

As a birthday girl, I look at every independence day differently, not for the wishes and gifts(ofcourse, ther are special), but for the sense I try to make of this nation beyond the rhetorics... This is a round the clock business for me (even for the rest of the 365 days), but this particular day I also try to weigh my insecurities about India-if the graph has relatively come down from last August 15th... Most of the times, this exercise makes me anxious and the day I am supposed to be happy, I'm often in gloom and despair...I ll tel you why..

In the meanwhile,  this independence day I have two requests to my fellow citizens of this country-both residing inside and the diaspora...
One, make an attempt to look beyond the canvas of the English speaking urban middle class and try to think of matters relating to this nation that doesn't fit in their screens...
Second, read the philosophies and the idea of India as envisaged by luminaries who won us freedom or if time doesn't permit that read on Ambedkar, Nehru, Tagore and Gandhiji..

I'm pretty sure that this will be an eye-opener for you and will help you see what mostly goes unreported /underreported in mainstream media- the plight of the 'other' 70% of India for whom this day is just like any other day where they have to look for ways to eek out a living, where women have to get up before sunrise to relieve themselves (even in an open defecation free district), where kerosene lamps need to be lit in a completely 'electrified' village and where a medical emergency would mean dying children and a travel of over 30kms carrying your loved one on your shoulders....

I'm very sure that when you read what  our forefathers envisaged of this nation, it is definitely not this...It is definitely not a nation, where showing patriotism has become a forced ritual,where the idea of nationalism is no longer 'inclusive nationalism', where a criticism of the state machinery invites hateful trolls and where the institutions meant for welfare have failed the people for decades by taking a deep plunge into the complex web of power and corruption leaving the ordinary citizens squandering in an entangled maze...

It is not to underestimate  the great things that are happening in India that I took to writing this down...But only to remind that these fortunes are definitely not trickling down the way it should have and that the issues ailing this nation are not as miniscule as we think it is....

On the midnight of 15th August 1947, India ventured in a new journey,  shedding the past prejudices, embracing a modern democracy adorned by noble values and by pledging to work to 'wipe the tear from every eye'...Today as we see it, many tears have been wiped, but there are definitely many more....

For me, the biggest birthday gift I can dream of is not an India where every tear has been wiped (that would be beyond my lifetime), but an India where there is no hesitation to wipe the tears of the miserable.....

My biggest dream for a birthday gift would be - a changed India...

#HappyIndependenceDay

-Neeraja