India...then and now.....

“Let’s work on this project on Friday?”
“..Friday is a holiday..!”
“Why, Oh..! How could I forget.. Independence Day..!”

That’s the conversation I had with a friend of mine only two days ago. I can’t blame him for his ignorance. Before damning me eternally I hope patriots will care to read further.

I live in a country where it took 42 amendments to introduce the word ‘Secular’ in the constitution despite its history of divide and rule. A country, where you must include your religion, caste and race in forms to gain an admission in a college or to get a job. A country where most people would take precisely a second to recall and recite Jeniffer Lopez’s latest excuse for a song but fail to go beyond “India is my country….”when asked for a national pledge. A country where an youngster as me drop off a hat, vociferously criticize India as I have done so far but require sometime before they can think of something praiseworthy about it.

Can we be blamed? I think not…

Patriotism is a concept as alien to my generation as traveling to school by bullock cart. By patriotism, I don’t mean wearing chic khadi kurtas, unfurling our flag, singing national anthem by rote at the school assembly and rejoicing only because it’s a public holiday. It isn’t about screaming Vande Mataram and then spitting on the road. Patriotism also isn’t about hating ‘Pakistanis’ and bad mouthing corrupt ‘Politicians’.

It isn’t about constantly lamenting the ‘State of the nation today’. It’s about getting up and doing something about it or inspiring others to do the same if it isn’t possible to do it alone. I am not one of these people. Nor are my obsessed friends. I fail to understand the tear that rolls down my parent’s cheek when they hear Lata Mangeshkar sing, “Aye mere vatan le logon…!”

I don’t know the story of Ramayan or Mahabharat. I prefer kurtas over jeans then over pyjamas. I dress Indian very occasionally and sometime only because of a traditional day celebrated at our organization. Not because I’m proud to be Indian.

I am not proud to be Indian. Not wholly. Because the India I know isn’t the one my parents did. Their India had Gandhiji and Nehru, only people to be read about in history text books to me. Their India gave them heroes who inspired change while….

My India has given me self appointed moral guardians who censor lyrics at rock concerts to preserve their culture and then celebrate the birth of the sixth billionth baby….!!

Their India had manually operated radios announcing dismal unintelligible recordings of lathi charges and merciless killings of Indians at the hands of the ‘white man’, struggles that invoked pride and goose bumps.

My India has digital colour televisions broadcasting crystal clear pictures of lathi charges and merciless killings of Indians at the hands of other Indians, struggles that invoke sheer disgust or just plain indifference.

Their independence had value – a meaning that inspired them to do anything, everything within their reach to achieve their dream of a FREE INDIA. It meant more to them than their life itself.

My generation’s obligation towards our nation ends when we take the first flight out to an ‘American University’ at the age of 20. Their obligations and feelings of responsibility continue even when the government relinquishes its own.

One cannot deny that increasing criminalization of politics and the resultant hollowness of words such as ‘national pride’ and ‘mother India’ have succeeded in awakening the youth to an India they can’t always bring themselves to call ‘Saare Jahaan se accha..’


We continue to live in an India where the most expectant and optimistic faces on August 15 belong to the urchins selling paper flags and an India where Independence Day celebrations consist of e-mailing, e-greetings to e-ach other.

My grand mother’s Independence was about making salt from crumbling walls in the middle of the road at the age of seven hoping to get arrested for defying British Raj….. and my independence is about to sit, relax, sleep, watch movies, read blogs or to write hollow articles like this, for the entire day as it is a Public Holiday..!!!


--Words
Unknown.