Happy Independence Day my fellow Indians..
It is a day when we celebrate the blood and sweat of freedom fighters, achievements of the past 65 years after independence and also contemplate - where do we head now..
We are 65 years old today. And our democracy is still going through teething process like a baby. We may be the largest democracy, but surely not the most mature one. We still play vote bank politics, we still vote based on caste and religion. As long as the people in power keep exploiting people not in power, democracy might well be called oligarchy for all the difference it makes.
Democracy was meant to shift the control of governance in hands of people. People who were given power were supposed to be hierarchically below the common people. And the structure forefathers presented was quite justified. All rationale suggests that if people in power are elected by people not in power, then they would be accountable to them.
But we failed them because we forgot those basics. Our decision to vote for a candidate should solely be based on his credentials, his past record of governance and his administration skills. Instead, we kept selling our votes to the powerful under influence of mob mentality, caste-religion bias or short term motives.
The result of that is today for all of us to see. People are sitting on agitations, there are hunger protests so government can listen to people. Sitting on hunger protest is equivalent to blackmailing but has our government become that callous forcing people to resort to such measures?
I think before we start fixing anything, it behoves us to fix our own self. In 1947, we had conquered British, gained our independence from them, but we were still fighting poverty, illiteracy, mismanagement of resources and lack of proper administration. Today, in 2012, we fight poverty, illiteracy, mismanagement of resources, lack of proper administration and corruption on top of that. What happened in these 65 years is that we lost the passion and drive to make our country better. We lost the intention of doing good for India, we got so busy doing good for self. Rich became richer and the economic gap widened.
Let us fix ourselves first. Let us all at least find that intent of doing good for India in us. Let us put the barriers of languages, regions, states, castes, colours, cultures, religions aside. Let us reignite the passion for India, India as a whole, not a region, not a state, my whole mother India.
Besides realising our faith in unity of an undivided India, we need educated masses. We need every person in this country educated and literate. Every person needs to be someone who understands his/her fundamental rights and duties and understands public administration and stand up against exploitation. And we need people to go beyond and make others aware against unlawful, corrupt activities that infest under the sheets in dark. We needs such activists to be in every sphere of society - medicine, administration, media, judiciary etc.
But if you cannot be such an activist, the least you can do is understand the importance of the biggest power you have - your vote. We all need to keep ourselves informed, make a rational opinion based on governance alone and then vote. It will be a slow process but the day contesting candidates realise that they cannot cheat their way into power - that day, you and I as common men, we become powerful. That day, we realise the true potential of democracy. That day, all our requests and appeals will not go unanswered. That day, we will have true accountability. That day, we would have gained independence from conservative thinking and fear of hooligans. We would have freedom from exploitation and it would be independence in its purest form..
Lets pledge on this Independence Day that when we gather again to celebrate next Independence Day, we would have done something in this whole one year, that would make us worthy of celebration.
JAI HIND
