Are we independent yet?

When British were ruling India, they were exploiting our resources and taxes were sent to England.

Now we are still exploited and the taxes make its way to the Swiss bank accounts of Powerful people (not just politicians).

Is there truly a difference?

Yes there are differences in the external way in which the setup looks.

We elect our leaders and people who represent us in the parliament. If they are truly our representatives, then why is the government in favor of the minority and not the majority? Are they truly our representatives? Do we really have the power to elect our representatives and leaders?

We have freedom of expression, at least as per constitution, however, movies against government gets banned, media needs to support the leaders in order to survive, the truth is conveniently forgotten and voice is suppressed. Do we still have a freedom of speech?

In the other countries, censor board views the movie and rate them for the minimum age group for viewership, not remove scenes from the movie, and yet they do not claim to have freedom of expression to be their right in constitution. Isn’t this hypocrisy?

And we are happy to celebrate 65th Independence Day. Do we have the independence yet?

Where did it all go wrong? How did British who ruled India for their profits bring about more development in India than the politicians for the last 64 years? What happened to all the people who stood up to throw British out of India, have they slept once India got freedom?

I learnt that the preamble to our constitution was changed from describing the state as a “sovereign democratic republic” to “sovereign socialist secular democratic republic” in 1976. What an irony? There has been more reservations everywhere ever since. Then, why do we proclaim ourselves to be secular?

Every one of us is responsible for the failed India that we have seen over the last 64 years. India has grown around the hurdles of the political system. We just crib about the failure and do nothing (continuing the tradition I do the same here). We like to blame others for the failure. The blame is on every one of us. We are the biggest hypocrites, biggest racists and still we call ourselves secular. No other country in the world sees so much of divides within themselves. We never look at a fellow Indian as Indian. Rather we look at them as Madrasis, South Indians, North Indians, Marathis, Punjabis, Bengalis, Biharis, and what not. We call Europeans and people in US to do racial discrimination. We do that within our country for our own people.

We talk of being culturally rich country and respect women and make fun of the family values of some of the western countries. Yet, we have so many rapes (mostly by known people), prostitution (people are proud of having gone to one), murders for various reasons including religion (when did god ever ask you to kill for him?).

We talk of corruption, supporting Anti-corruption bill and yet, we would rather pay Rs. 50/- as a bribe to the Traffic cop rather than taking the pain to pay the fine of Rs. 200/- at the court not just for the money but also for the time spent on doing so. We try to find a “jugaad” out of situations by paying bribes in various forms and yet we expect our politicians to be clean.

We would elect someone only if they manage to convince us with their “promotions”, they give us good offers for voting, they spend well on elections and yet, we expect them to take a salary of mere Rs. 30,000/- and be happy with it after having spent Rs. 20 crores in the election campaign.

We are big fools to follow without knowing what we follow. Best example is following Anna Hazare. 90% of those who follow do not know how’s, what’s and the feasibility of the bill, yet blindly support it, just like the support given to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Once the bill is passed, everyone will go back to sleep for another 50 years, only to be woken up by reality.

I am not a political mind to think of a solution for this problem. But I can tell you that the so called selfless structure of our government is flawed. We expect the leaders to spend money from their pocket in crores to sit in the position of power, get a very small pay and be very happy with it. Why is it not run like an organization where we pay the top management a lot to keep the company profitable? They take shares in profit and hence work towards the success of the organization, not because they are selfless and would work for a salary of Rs. 1.

Just some random thoughts, not in any sequential order, however, these have made me wonder for a long time, is it just me feeling this way? Is everyone else very happy with the system? If not, they why do we wish everyone a very happy Independence day? I am not truly happy because I feel I am truly not living in an Independent country.

I wish I would see a day when I would be truly happy to wish people for Independence Day. Till then, hope is all that I have.

“Hum honge kaamyaab... Hum honge kaamyaab...

Hum honge kaamyaab... Ek din!!”