Disclaimer: What you read is absolute rage and indignance. You’re free to relate, retaliate, or feel guilty alongside myself and others in the comments.
Almost a month ago, we celebrated the ‘Independence Day’. It is such a glory for a nation to celebrate the victory that the blood and sweat of millions earned for the motherland and its future generations.
The ones who forged this newly independent nation, did so with the vision of making it inexorable, with the vision of seeing a fathomless growth in a nurturing society, where each soul would dedicate itself to the nation first, to its people next, and to themselves at the end.
However, today, when we see one killing, assaulting, raping, bribing, threatening, conning the other simply for personal or vested interests, I feel, there must have been some point where we faltered – as citizens, as voters, and as human beings.
Is The Celebration Of Patriotism Enough?
I am sure you cherish the “Tiranga” (tricolor) on the 15th of August, the 26th of January and on certain other annual occasions, but what before and after that? Are tricolor dresses, kites, patriotic songs building the roof for the under-privileged? Are the mere garlands over statues on some particular days bringing a GDP growth?
Are you, enabling harmony by singing some poems on certain days, while on others who judge a fellow based on a culture that they’re born in? Most importantly, are you teaching your children the real ideals of the freedom leaders while you dress them for fancy dress competitions in round glasses with a stick, or with a moustache and a hat, or with a shawl and round glasses, or in ‘Nehru jackets’?
Well, thank you for understanding how parochial we have been towards the real concept of being a patriot. And if you still aren’t sure of whether to mend your ways or not, let me just ask some questions here, and answer none.
Are you genuinely so fond of history, that based on its beguiling new claims, you’re wishing for the eviction of certain communities, simply to defend your ego that makes you believe in your assumed superiority? With what authority do the ministers claim their efforts for welfare, when behind their billboards, are authoritarian policies, that pounce on the protestors?
With what voice are they eligible to talk of a ‘New India’ or of ‘Democracy’ where each one of them silences the dissenter, whether with laws that only the Imperials used, or with guns, that even soak the blood, and hide the corpses from the rest living? After all, in which factory is their audacity manufactured, when they simply work for personal propaganda, and for dismantling the diversity in the name of a public-loved government?
Where is the authenticity of the adulated bureaucracy, when right beside the placards of their posts, they stand insensitive, ignorant and useless to the homeless little kids who are merely used as money making tools by gangs that are in fact, involved with the authorities themselves? Where is our own sense when akin to sheep, we simply follow what the profit making politicians claim?
Former JNU student leader Umar Khalid, arrested under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act over the Delhi riots, told a court on Thursday that he was not being allowed to step out of his cell and it was akin to “solitary confinement” https://t.co/vzeCtkjjUE
— The Telegraph (@ttindia) October 23, 2020
Where are our own memories of nightmares that the ineffective policies induced, that we yet again, lose on social responsibility and act according to our ‘id’? Where is our courage, that no petitions ever knocked the doors of the apex guardian of the law when all that the Government did, was fill our brains with false statements and stats?
Where is our claimed compassion, when even in the 75th year of independence, the agony of the homeless, the helpless, the uneducated, and the abhorrence of zealots still tears apart the sanctity of the nation? Why have we left the soul of democracy dying when today, the leaders appease the temple of democracy and its priest sheds tears?
Where is the veracity when behind the lenses of studio cameras, hate feeding fictions are popularized in the name of ‘truths’ and we simply read a short article on the reality, which too is forgotten? And the upholder of the truth, sliced by the sword of a power that can never be questioned?
Forgotten Values And Ideals
In which trash bin did we throw the golden values of “Devi-Pujan” (worshipping women), that today, every 16 minutes, yet another woman suffers and cries for help, while an undesirable man rapes her?
In which isolated island is the so-called male-power residing when today, a man murders a woman in broad-daylight, when yet another beheads his daughter, when in another corner, a priest kills a girl, and the assaults are measured while the blame ends on the sensitive shoulders that were meant to carry school bags and not traumas of lifetime?
Where does a woman lose her motherly instincts, when right in front of her, kids similar to her own, run barefoot on scorching streets to earn a penny or two for a master, who otherwise would harass them? If nothing else, where do we lose our voice, when the crises ascent unbarricaded, and we simply watch, and don’t even logically talk over them?
Where are the core values of the heritage that you’ve been proud of, that today, you blame the nation and leave this house that’s leaking, breaking and crying for an assiduous effort for renovation; simply to live a life that profits you alone?
And if, despite all of that, you are going to end up putting the “Tiranga” (tricolor) in your verandah a particular day, and deviate in your acts from the ideals that the three colors respectively stand for, then kudos, you shall call yourself a worthy patriot, a worthy citizen, only for a single day; and a criminal who is in a way contributing to crime against his/her/their own nation, in some form or the other, every other day.