The 15th of August.

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high. 

I live in a country where the women are still afraid of stepping out of their houses. Parents are scared to give birth to a girl child. The righteous are forced to bow their heads to the corrupts. The ones who fight against the evils are appreciated with oppression. There are people whose minds are filled with fear. They are afraid to speak. They are afraid to act. They are afraid even to post their views on a social networking site. And we have quite peculiar notions as to only the wealthy and the powerful can have their heads held up high. And we are intimidated to ask why. 

Where knowledge is free.

My country's government has divided knowledge on the basis of caste rather than merit. In here 'what you are' is more important than 'who you are'. And it never ends there, we are accustomed to selling education at exorbitant prices. Which means, those who have no monies have no knowledge. We have built a system so strong, which runs on the recommendations of highly influential people, oh no, certificates, gold medals, 90% and above is never going to work, unless and until your aunt's brother's best friend's neighbor is the niece of the PA of the Education Minister.  

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments, by narrow domestic walls. 

The citizens of this nation have shed many tears and blood too, to draw boundaries around themselves. No, I'm not talking about just the geographical boundaries. It is there, up in our heads, those mere walls that keep categorizing individuals on the basis of colour, caste, language, region and so on. Really, people do discriminate the others only because they don't belong to the same class. We have political parties which are in favour of only a particular section. We support only those who belong to our community. Our various facilities that are provided to this country's people come along with a tag bearing the words 'exclusive'. We treat only our equals equally.

Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection.

Over the time we found peace in shutting our mouth and not telling the truth out loud to the world. Lets just say we do dare to speak the truth, or publish it in some newspaper, or gather one or two to approve us, still, no one will ever care. Or worse, everyday we live will be nothing but a nightmare. Perfection for us is confined to the statistics on the paper. We are perfect in finding faults, in complaining daily about the bad roads and about the power cuts, and the inflating prices. Mind you, our esteemed parliamentarians are so good at throwing the mikes and breaking furniture, they could win medals and trophies at some competition. Did I ever mention about watching videos/ sleeping during the sessions? Perfection, at its best. 

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit.

We are a democratic nation where the values of democracy are long murdered. Our elections are a big joke, no offence, here the political parties' manifestos shower on us laptops and TVs. Voting Day for us is no less than a feast. There's food, liquor, money, pick up whatever you want, please vote for us. Sure sire, lets forget that your past is boasting about all the charge sheets that were filed on you by the police as a criminal. When demanded to pay the extra amount by the person sitting on the other side of the desk, we will not question why. After all, what is the need for us to question when they are doing the work for us. Reason it out? Sorry, we don't have time. 

Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

If you thought I am a cynic and a pessimist to write all that I've written above. No hard feelings. 66 years have passed and I'm done with listening to the speeches on how well our country is developing day by day. I'm not saying we haven't achieved anything, it is not enough to feed the country with the laurels of the past. Our country has  been and is led by many great leaders. We are not cowards. We have the strength to fight back and show that we are not weak. We are afraid, yes, only when we do something wrong. We take pride in getting rid off the corruption, poverty and unemployment. And our heads go low, only when we pray. We do not believe that knowledge is something that can be taught in schools and colleges. And how many times haven't we praised all those who have succeeded  in life though they were school dropouts. We are partial, who is not. But we never shun away from helping those who are in need. No, we didn't bother about castes then. Our country is known to worship the truth. Come what may, the truth has to be revealed. You are right, Satyameva Jayathe. There are people in this nation who are struggling for the betterment of the society. There's is no place beautiful than my country. It's not always that I make a fuss about it.

Take courage in making right what went wrong. Teach the children, not just the alphabets but also some values. Never judge someone based on 'what they are'. Do not discriminate. Before you are a Hindu or Muslim, you are an Indian. Vote. But make an effort to know the candidates of your constituency. Raise your voice to express, to tell that free laptops aren't going to do any good. When you are approached to vote for so and so, you ask them to give you enough food and job opportunities and a safe place to live in. Just because you want your work to be done, don't ever bribe someone. If it's your right, you have the right to enjoy it. Not only when the Indian Cricket Team is playing in the World Cup you have to paint your faces with tri-colours, do something for the country. Like supporting other sports, Hockey, Badminton. The next time you complain on how the country is, why not try finding a solution for the problems. Remember, complain, only to bring about a change. To attain perfection is not possible every time, now that doesn't mean we don't work towards it every time. Open your eyes and see what is going on around you. Change what is possible. If only on the 15th of August/26th of January you decide to be all patriotic and for the rest of the year you don't even bother to know how the Food Security ordinance is going to effect us, or how the Foreign Trade Policies are responsible for the rupee crisis, and still say, "Iss desh ka kuch nahin hoga!", then to you. 
Happy Independence Day. 

Jai Hind.

Soumya Inavilli