As India Inc goes ga-ga over its 60th year of Independence, I really wonder what are we free from? The clutches of the British? But that's no news, it happened 60 years ago.
If we really want to know to what extent we are a free nation, we should look at it from a third person point of view. As a journalist, during my three-year stint with a leading newspaper, I happened to interview two Japanese students who were on a study tour to India. They spoke all about their visits to the Indology museum, University libraries etc.. praising our literary richness and warmth and generosity and blah,blah...
But this one question from them disturbs me no end, even today, three years after I met them. And that is, "Why is it that in India you have very poor people and very rich people all staying in the same locality almost happy with the way they are? How can such extremes co-exist?"
That day onwards, I think I have become cynical about goody-goody word "Freedom". Going by the observation made by the Japanese students, Freedom seems such a hypocritical word. For those sleeping on roadside pavements, it is the "freedom" of shifting from, say, a CG Road to SG Road, "freedom" from paying the taxes, "freedom" to beg whenever they want from whoever they wish to.
For those driving the BMW, it is the "freedom" to remain in a state of gay abandon, with or without having three pegs of whisky, the "freedom" to run over those pavement dwellers, the "freedom" to choose a lawyer and the "freedom" to go scottfree.
Well, if "Freedom" means two separate things for the two extremes in a society, isn't the word itself hypocritical? We all take pride in our intelligentsia, our IT strength, our astronauts, our beauty queens, our cricketers, our actors and our industrialists who continue to keep India in the limelight. But then, I feel, we are so blinded by all the glitter and glamour and deafened by flattery that we only want to speak what sounds good.
In this 60th year of Independence, I see India as an athlete on a wheelchair. The upper part of the body is active, the lower paralysed. Such a person can talk of winning medals but never get up and run, unless he is treated. I love my country and feel really proud to introduce myself as an Indian. But then, I can't afford to be dumb.
I can't afford to be blissfully oblivious to the critical issues facing us. I can't afford to let some of my people die of hunger and read about people spending crores for a VIP number. I want Absolute Freedom to be the ultimate reality, not an illusion. Because I am an Indian.
(Swapna is a Corporate Communications Professional with Cadila Pharmaceuticals Ltd in Ahmedabad.)
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