When I think of people who fought for our rights during the freedom struggle, such as Dr.B.R.Ambedkar or Bhagat Singh, one thought occurs to me; political freedom isn’t necessarily real freedom for India and its people. The present scenario in our country is evidence of this.
Even as we’re nearing the platinum jubilee of independent India, I have to wonder how much we have progressed as a society in terms of regressive mindsets.
Casteism, racism, sexism, religious fundamentalism, hyper-nationalism – all these ideologies continue to deteriorate social progress in India. Though there are people who realize this, most of them are taking advantage of it to monetize these beliefs.
While there are many reasons for this societal backwardness, I believe one of the main reasons is that we are abandoning the social reforms that our freedom fighters fought so hard for; in the name of culture, as an independent nation, we have slowly moved towards creating an oppressed society of people.
The only hope left is for the Government of India to address these regressive practices; I think the government is one of the few institutions that people still trust in our country. Although the Government has been trying to address these issues by introducing social reforms through various policies with support from the directive principles of the state, their attempts have largely been in vain. I believe this is due to the reactionary approach of the executive bodies of various institutions of the Government instead of a proactive approach.
To make matters worse, the predominance of political freedom is making democracy turn into populism. Thus, leaving a very little scope for the government to act on the real social issues which are holding back the progress of Indian society. Also, I strongly feel that strictly following the sustainable development goals and achieving them within the stipulated time is the ideal way to acquire faster progress of society. Only a socially stable country can tap its economic ability to the fullest which is a much-needed thing for India to emerge as a developed nation.