India Shining ! That's the new slogan out on the street. It fills our hearts with hope , expectations of a better tomorrow . The slogan ,coined by a reputed newspaper known to have front page coverage of Abhishek Bachan and Aishwarya's Rai's relationship, has captured the imagination of generations of indians this year .
But who are we really? Are we truly free , are we really shining ? In the words of our constitution are we really a secular democratic republic ? Or in 1947 did we trade in one autocratic government for another self elected autocracy. In principle alone how is the communal award of 1932 different from the reservation bill passed last year. If separate electorates weren't acceptable 60 years ago why is reservation the norm today , propagated by the same political party that once propagated its very antithesis ? Since when did secularism give way to sub conscious promotion of communalism ? The British propagated the use of the 'divide and rule' policy , is today's government doing any different ? Different rules for different communities , different laws to garner the vote of x community or reservation for y community to win over y community. How can we as a country progress when we lay in fragments within our own boundaries. When we are looked at not as Indians but as Hindus and Muslims and Sikhs and South Indians and so on . How can we make ourselves known globally while we lack a sense of national identity , when political parties promote the hindutva as opposed to Indian nationalism.
Its so easy to blame one community of people , play them off each other , create a riot , set fire to public property and take innocent lives . But these arent our basic problems but merely consequences of political policies. What we need is equality , secularism , true secularism. Where hindus and muslims and sikhs are all treated as one in the eyes of the law and the government . They got it right over sixty years ago when Bhagat Singh said that the first aim of revolution was to" end the exploitation of man by man". But 80 years and Independence later we still lay exploited , our true potential shattered but this time not by the 'firangis' but by ourselves.
India shining ?
1 comment:
Thats the side effect of democracy. The thing is, we are too many! And there is so much diversity in this country, in every aspect of its existence, that its nearly impossible to have ONE national goal or aim. People are short-sighted, thats the problem. And therefore we need visionaries, say like the not-so-teenage-drama-queen.. ;-)
Please never lose your vision and never ever stop wanting to change it. And think about your country, not because it shining or had a glorious past or any such crap, but just because u love it, before you do anything in life that affects this society...
rock on!
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