Independence day, is it?
Today is Independence Day. I didn’t go for the flag hoisting that happens at the Government Center near my home. I used to go willingly when I was in school but now I have grown up, though biologically, and look at this day as a holiday. Not because I have lost the patriotism I showed off during my childhood but because it’s still the same. It hasn’t got intense with the rising problems in my country, the grave social situation and the flawed idea of development we are all convinced about. And that’s why I don’t feel like celebrating this day anymore.
Democracy is getting drugged with biased propaganda of the political parties and the boisterous expression of their misfit followers. We have best of technology in one part of our country and not even enough water to survive in the other. In Mumbai itself, the skyscrapers show a line of shanties from their balconies. Women have broken the glass ceiling and women are being raped. The atrocities against men are still unvoiced like they never happen. Poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, child labor have become the common cold of our system.
I was hesitant to write all this as I am not adding any value here. Everyone’s aware of the situation. We discuss, debate, banter and leave it aside conveniently. Yet I mentioned it because I wanted to remind myself what I am ignoring in the pursuit of my own well-being. Will I be able to build a career I claim to be passionate about in country with instability? What if one morning we wake up to something the locals of Afghanistan woke up to? What if our individual priorities and rationalized actions contribute to a time where the most brutal action gets justified?
We don’t think this far. Not because it is convenient but because we are incapable. Our enemy today is not like the British, an outsider exploiting us openly. Our enemy dwells within us; The need to have more, the belief that there’s not enough for all, the thought that for one person to win, the other should lose and the newly bred trend of ‘showing’ the world how happy you are. We haven’t lost our morals. We do cherish them in a million small acts everyday. We have just lost the sense of freedom trying to chase it. Freedom is not living your life in your own terms but creating a world where ‘living on you own terms’ is no more a challenge.
