Gandhi’s young India was Nehru but today’s young India is neither Gandhian nor Nehruvian. A steady and continual change is seemingly visible. Though we have been celebrating the 75th anniversary of Independence Day, the young generation is still sleeping in line with Nehru’s famous words, “when the whole world sleeps, India attains freedom at midnight“. At present, young India awakes till late midnight for it searches their particular dreams among the twinkling stars which disappear after the slumber culminates just at the next dawn. What is new in New India?
Nothing but Nehruvian scientific temper or thinking and secular standards are still intact up to this latest anniversary of August 15. This is so because we the Indians still cry for a small girl who beseeches for an end to the ruthlessness and raise her not-so-strong voices against the cold communal considerations either not too long a distance from the unique Dome of Democracy or anywhere in the length and breadth of the big country.
If Jinnah did mock the astrological date of August 15 for India’s freedom, he also forgot August 14 was during Ramazan. He favored holding lunch that day but it was afterward changed into dinner on August 14, 1947.
माउंटबेटन लिखते हैं, “वो दिल्ली में आधी रात को होने वाले स्वतंत्रता दिवस समारोह के बारे में ये कहकर मेरी खिंचाई कर रहे थे कि किसी ज़िम्मेदार सरकार का ज्योतिषियों के निकाले गए मुहूर्त के आधार पर चलना कितना विचित्र है.” “मैं उन्हें ये जवाब देते-देते रह गया कि कराची में होने वाले समारोह का कार्यक्रम भी इसीलिए बदला गया है कि जिन्ना को रमज़ान की याद नहीं थी वर्ना वो तो दोपहर का भोज देना चाहते थे जिसे बाद में रात्रिभोज में बदलना पड़ा था.” ( Mountbatten writes, “He was pulling me up about the midnight Independence Day celebrations in Delhi by saying how strange it is for a responsible government to run on the basis of atime determined by astrologers. I kept replying to him that the program of the ceremony in Karachi has also been changed because Jinnah did not remember Ramzan or else he wanted to give lunch which later had to be converted into dinner.“)