Independent!! ??

Hello people,

I am writing after a very long time. And when I went through my earlier blogs, I saw a coincidence here. My first blog was on 26th January and this one is on Independence Day!! Hmmmm!!

15th August. Known as Independence Day!, Celebrated to mark our contry's victory from the British rule of 1858 to 1947.A day where the media and all telivsion channels compete with each other to prove that they are more patriotic than the others. Patriotic songs, patriotic movies. Panel discussions, which have no conclusion, about how progressive we are, how much have we achieved over the last 60 years and our growing economic prowess in the world.

But in all these, I am sure we have all asked ourselves this question atleast once " As a country we are independent but are we really free?"

Think about it. We speak about the freedom to expression as mentioned in our constitution and then you hear about the various bodies who take exception to anything and everything which they think could give them the 15 secs to fame. The recent one being the ban on the movie Aarakshan in 3 states. The reason: because the president of the National Commision for Scheduled Caste got a complaint from somebody who thought that the movie is against the SC & ST. So what does the president do. He writes to the Censor Board which is a Govt body for the regulation of movies and next thing is a demand to watch the movies to clear the movie which is already cleared by the Censor Board. The next thing that happens is that 3 states which go to polls ban the movie. If the constitution has given us the freedom of expression, then why cant the director get to enjoy that priviledge and why can't the audience get to demonstrate that as well.

India, before it became a republic in 1950 was a union of lot of princely states. The union republic of India gives its citizen the freedom to go, live and work anywhere in India they wish to. But is that a reality. If that is so, why do we have every Tom, Dick & Harry forming parties at regional levels to beat up and drive out anybody who are not from that region. Is that not the kind of freedom that an independent country is supposed to give it's people?

What freedom are we talking about? Masons who build the hi rises and luxury homes do not have a shelter for themselves. Construction workers who build schools, would have never been in one and worse still nor would their children ever will. Are these kids not entitled to a freedom to education.

When will we be free from the corruption and the corrupt? When will we as a country be free from the laid back and " sab chalta hai" attitude? When will we be free from litter on the street? When will we be free from the substandard civil work? When will we be free from the burden of our age old beliefs which seem to drag us 100 steps back every time we take 1 step forward? When???

I can go on and on about the various things which make me question the sanctity of this whole thing called freedom. Would we have been better off under the Britishers? Atleast we would not have been frustrated of being tortured and humilated by our own countrymen!

 Are we really FREE???