Freedom fighters are underrated!
We celebrate our national holidays quite enthusiastically, paying homage to our leaders and forefathers who sacrificed their lives for the freedom we enjoy today. But I entered in a state of thought today that we are not doing enough. And I don’t mean by some act of appreciation that we are lagging behind, but by our limited understanding of their contribution.
This is not another article showcasing the bravery of our freedom fighters who never gave a second thought about their lives, which they did and we have been studying about the same in our school curriculum. This is more about the scenario they were in, which we miss almost totally.
To appreciate someone’s work, you have to put your feet in their shoes. Lets do that here. You are born in a family where people don’t get two meals a day and are often struck with deadly diseases for which there are no cure or enough health facilities in your area. Lets say you were extraordinary and you worked twice as hard as other people, but being oppressed by the rulers, you were never able to get out of your dreadful life. Rights were not even a distant thought in yours or anyone’s minds. You pictured that this is what life is.
Lets take second scenario. You were one of the lucky ones to be born in a wealthy babu family. You got to learn in English schools, lived lavishly with all your hobbies and pursued a girl you thought was the love of your life. You saw poor people but you preached that if they work hard like you, they will become like you one day too. There was no idea of nationalism and any ruler was considered just another ruler who sits and collects taxes. You pictured that this is what life is.
Now in both the families you were born in, you have a comfort zone. Physical comfort zone can be overcome with few shots of motivation to create a difference. But mental comfort zone is the real challenge. How can you come up with an idea that you have never experienced or can believe to be true? How can you get out of your little box created by your daily experiences and do something that can change the face of your country? To be subtle, how can you fight for the right if you don’t know what is right. You have your school books written by your colonizers, you read newspapers printed by your colonizers and you get few chunks of donations, development facilities or reforms from your colonizers so that you don’t revolt.
We might have created an understanding of the real challenge at that time. But lets make that more concrete. We assumed you were born in the two imaginary families above. Lets be real. You are born in the family you are born today. You can see all sorts of problems that trouble you if you are a empathetic person. You can see poverty, illiteracy, violence, immigrant problems, women safety, I can go on and on. We say we are in a democracy and each of us rule our country, well in that case, aren’t we all responsible for everything that goes on in our country. We don’t have anything to say but rant, even from a foreign country because we complain about the lack of facilities and security in our country and go abroad. I guess now you can see the mental block here, we have somewhere in the back of our minds that its not possible to solve these problems and once again this is what life is.
This is a picture that you can paint because you know about colors here. You know red and green don’t match. You know if someone is getting beaten or someone is not getting enough opportunities, he or she is not given enough rights to grow. Now think again of the times, when all this were considered normal and obvious day to day life. Figuring out the hidden weed and rooting it out, getting out of the comfort zone is what our freedom fighters did. They were simply extraordinary people. I can’t stop myself giving an example of the dedication and zeal of SC Bose, when was asked to resign from Congress presidency, went ahead, travelled multiple countries to create an army of his own, and fought the mighty British army.
Problems never cease to exist, its our perspective that matters. We can shrug anything off since we can either learn to compromise or put a blind eye over someone’s dread after clicking on the sad emoji, or we can take a step into the dark and unknown just like our freedom fighters did to pull us out into the light.
