A very happy Independence Day to all Indians.
Or is it?
Not the 'happy' part. The 'all' part.
It began in the morning. I was going to my college festival, Malhar, and was waiting at the railway station for a friend to come. Meanwhile, I saw a few kids approach some elders with the objective of selling paper-brooches (replicas of the Indian tricolour). A man bought a brooch. Another did not. Even I said I did not want one to a boy who came to me. And then, a woman, out of the blue, approached my friend with a brooch and almost pinned it to her top. My friend said she did not want one either.
To many of us, at least seemingly, Independence Day is a day of celebration of freedom, of our varied history and culture which I don't refute however, freedom of what? From what? To do what?
If I may elucidate further, it would be the freedom to wish everyone a happy Independence Day; the freedom to sing our national anthem; the freedom to display flags at homes and at places of work and to step on those same flags the next day; the freedom to swear at everyone and anyone; the freedom to do what one wants; the freedom to forget the bad and the good; the freedom to blame others where we should be to blame; the freedom to get the juice out of a system while being totally useless in every possible way; the freedom to get past every echelon of power by showing your VIP pass; the freedom of crying that a battered wife has, after 65 years of Independence, finally got (an anti-climax, wouldn't that be, that a woman got the political right to vote earlier, and then the social right to even cry?); the freedom to shut up to oppression; the freedom to remain blind when what atrocity you see (if not endure) doesn't do enough in itself to blind you; the freedom, in spite of all the littering and spitting and vandalism you've done and all the hatred you've stored and spread, to say, "I love India" without the slightest undertone of shame; the freedom to discriminate; the freedom to belittle; the freedom to care for some and to not care less for others.
And I won't shut up believing it's going to be like that forever. My teacher for Political Science once said,
Or is it?
Not the 'happy' part. The 'all' part.
It began in the morning. I was going to my college festival, Malhar, and was waiting at the railway station for a friend to come. Meanwhile, I saw a few kids approach some elders with the objective of selling paper-brooches (replicas of the Indian tricolour). A man bought a brooch. Another did not. Even I said I did not want one to a boy who came to me. And then, a woman, out of the blue, approached my friend with a brooch and almost pinned it to her top. My friend said she did not want one either.
To many of us, at least seemingly, Independence Day is a day of celebration of freedom, of our varied history and culture
If I may elucidate further, it would be the freedom to wish everyone a happy Independence Day; the freedom to sing our national anthem; the freedom to display flags at homes and at places of work and to step on those same flags the next day; the freedom to swear at everyone and anyone; the freedom to do what one wants; the freedom to forget the bad and the good; the freedom to blame others where we should be to blame; the freedom to get the juice out of a system while being totally useless in every possible way; the freedom to get past every echelon of power by showing your VIP pass; the freedom of crying that a battered wife has, after 65 years of Independence, finally got (an anti-climax, wouldn't that be, that a woman got the political right to vote earlier, and then the social right to even cry?); the freedom to shut up to oppression; the freedom to remain blind when what atrocity you see (if not endure) doesn't do enough in itself to blind you; the freedom, in spite of all the littering and spitting and vandalism you've done and all the hatred you've stored and spread, to say, "I love India" without the slightest undertone of shame; the freedom to discriminate; the freedom to belittle; the freedom to care for some and to not care less for others.
Is that what freedom is about? As Clifton Davis put it succinctly,
"With Freedom, Comes Responsibility."
And while coming back from college, today, I saw a man drag a little boy and another man drag another little boy to the Railway Police Station. I became Peeping Tom. I did not help. I did not not help. Just stood there, watching. Perhaps the guys had picked someone's pocket. Maybe they'd just done something to 'spoil' the men's Independence Day.
I wonder how many people of this one-billion-odd-populated country have the right to know what freedom is, let alone what Independence Day is (they usually just know when it is).
I wonder if the men would have dragged their own sons like that. Probably. More probably, they'd have just slapped the kid once and then got done over it.
All of this reminds me of the grand but deep truth that George Orwell, in as far behind in time as 1943-'44, observed
"All animals are equal;
but some are more equal than others."
"The country is free, not its people."
I don't want it to be like that forever.
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