A woman is stabbed to death at a crowded metro station in Gurgaon by a man who is unable to take no for an answer. The murderer gets enough time to stab her several times in the midst of scores of people. Unfortunately, not even a single soul moves an inch to save her. Rather they silently watch the attack and some overtly social-networking conscious people take video of the attack to become heroes by being the first to upload it to get more and more likes. How inhumane!
This is nothing but virtual heroics. This incident speaks a great deal about our dead conscience. This isn’t any lone incident; it is related to the idea of a nation. It can’t be ignored while we discuss development or even patriotism. The number of crimes that the nation is experiencing is more than the number of people comprising it.
The news that once used to make people shake, now does so no more because crime has become a norm. Every day newspapers are full of unfortunate news. We hear the cries of the victims, but we don’t console them. We witness their thirst, but we never try to quench it. We don’t help the helpless and cherish the mindset that nothing matters till the wave reaches us. Yes, if our neighbour is a victim of injustice, we sleep and wait for our turn, only then do we act and collectiveness takes birth.
I was reminded of all this on the Republic day. On every Independence and Republic day, we make commitments to perform our duties towards our country but these are broken the very next day. We put these commitments under our pillow and follow the same old fashioned life where everyone belongs to the nation but nation doesn’t belong to anyone.
Well, Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Campaign) can give the perfect evaluation of our commitment towards our nation. We dedicated one Gandhi Jayanti to this event and promised to make India clean. Where is the cleanliness? We failed this unique program because we don’t consider maintaining cleanliness as our duty towards our country. We hold the government accountable for the garbage and dirt in public places. We don’t realise our own mistake that it is we, the people, who threw this garbage on the road.
Patriotism doesn’t lie in merely having love for our soldiers, or in singing about their great deeds. It is the actual performance of duties at the individual level. We don’t need guns. We have a voice. We can use it to counter corruption, communalism and other injustices that create terror in our society. We can use it against all the hinderances to the elevation of poor population from poverty and the development of our nation.
Patriotism, in any case, must not starve to death if words like “Kashmir” and “Pakistan” are removed. All this is pseudo-patriotism. Simply playing the national anthem or unfurling the tri-colour should not constitute patriotism. Not sending children to the school should constitute sedition because it hinders the development of our nation. Corruption, communalism, hate speeches, discrimination should constitute sedition for these hamper the development of our nation and also divide our country.
We need to rethink our commitment towards our motherland and make a dynamic shift in our thoughts. Together have the capability to take our nation to great heights and make it supreme. We can turn Abdul Kalam sir’s vision into a reality if we change ourselves. We need to bring a sense of responsibility within ourselves. Our actions need to speak louder than words. Making false promises will never make us or our nation great. We need to become concerned citizens because a group of concerned citizens is what makes a great nation.