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INDEPENDENT INDIA...Yet to attain Freedom....

"At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history when we step out from the old to the new…India discovers herself again." The famous speech by Our First Prime Minister-Jawaharlal Nehru-(on Indian Independence Day, 1947).

It must have been a moment of triumph and joy to witness the country stepping from Slavery from the British Raj to Freedom. Many laid their lives and underwent torture to free our Motherland from the foreign clutches.

India is a huge nation with a strong cultural background, different religions that are practiced under one roof, multilingual, multi-cultured, a full-fledged democratic country.

Today, we celebrate the 63rd year of India attaining Independence. Freedom to run our country with a government chosen by us with anticipation and hope that we will have a better system, a future that was dreamt of by the freedom fighters.

Today, when I sit back and think, there is one thought that bothers me. Are we really Independent, Have we really attained Freedom? What does Freedom mean? Have we really utilized this freedom enough?

Even after so many years are we a full-fledged self-sufficient and a developed country?

What does Freedom mean to us? Was it just clenching our wrists free from a foreign country?

When people fought for a free India, they wouldn’t have even imagined in their wildest dreams that their struggle would end up in this manner.

I’m not saying, we haven’t done progress, we have grown heaps and bounds in terms of research, technology, Industrialisation, Healthcare, Infrastructure. At the same time, we are still struggling with issues like poverty, casteism, food, Education, Drinking water, Shelter, Raising Prices, Child Labour, Sanitation, Employment, Electricity, regionalism.Be it sports, education system, Not to leave out terrorism and corruption that is driving the nation Nuts.

Moreover, has anyone thought about brain drain? India is not short of talent, intellects, skilled labors, scientist, doctors, and engineers and many more such professionals, yet no one wants to be here. Most of them look out for greener pastures. Don’t we have opportunities here? We do, but with also have so many problems, dirty politics that play the spoil sport and when one wants to fight it out, there is no way out...Not to mention the poor state of affairs that prevails in the field of sports.

May be we are free in a manner, but still slaves in our own free country. As individuals we are wonderful people, but as a Nation, can we really boast ourselves to be a United India? We have so many differences within our selves. India is united yet divided. It’s sad, we have reversed the proverb-United we stand-divided we fall to United we fall-Divided we stand.

We still carry the same weakness, which took 339 years to free ourselves. Whom are we fighting with? Our own people. Fighting in terms of gaining importance, misusing of Funds, inter regions, inter state issues, naxalites, and inter language issues to mention a few. Freedom will be when we are free from the problems prevailing in our Country. My question is-Can we really say we are a FREE NATION.....?What are we so proud about Our Independence? For misusing it? To be slaves in the hands of our own people?

It’s disappointing that Independence Day has become yet another festival to be celebrated, another awaited holiday added to our Holiday list, A National Ritual to be followed and speeches delivered across the country and conveniently forgotten until the next Independence Day.

Freedom will be when we become a self sufficient country. Freedom will be when we as Indians together forget our internal differences and strive for the betterment of our country. Freedom will be when our Leaders and bureaucrats work together to build a strong nation and we emerge from a developing Country to a Developed Country. Freedom will be when we will be able to deal with our internal issues without any outside interference.

We will then be able to celebrate our Independence in its true sense and wish each other proudly a VERY HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!!!!

© Copyright 
All Rights reserved Lavanya M Rao

Comments

Unknown said…
Hi lavanya,

I liked your blog and it is darn good. Congratulations!! It just occured to my mind, while reading your blog and would like to give my perspective on "Independence"
Independence is a broad word, which means many things to many people. From a very broad perspective, I feel We Indians are independent from a political standpoint and not from a financial standpoint, which is the main reason, for most of the issues you have rightfully mentioned. I would also like to take the oppurtunity to say one more thing, the solo SUPER POWER in the world now - "USA", she gained independence from great britain some 300 plus years back, compared to India which is independent for some 60 plus years now, but the hard truth is, USA is still dependent on some of the major asian and european friends for trade and commerce, like China and Japan. So would the financial independence really matters? I know i am contradicting my own statement here, but now the bigger question - what does Independence really mean to us..

Venkata Viswanath

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