The Real Meaning of Independence

We are going to celebrate another independence day and like every year again several of our leaders are preparing for a long list of speeches about freedom, development, policies etc. As an Indian, I feel proud to myself to be born in a great nation of the world but another side I also feel ashamed of myself when I read or hear the news about girls is heckled by men on the street or girls are raped by some of our intellectual class of people. As per the record, In India, 106 rapes occur every day and on average a rape occurs in every 54 minutes.

Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, in his speech as the first Prime-minister of free India, said: "A moment has come, which but comes very rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance…..we end today a period of ill fortune and India discovers herself again." So, post-independence, it was the journey of a long-suppressed nation towards freedom, development, and enhancement.

So what has changed after the 71nd years of independence? What does Independence mean for us? India is obviously free more so on paper and the good thing about August 15 is that it is only independence for a nation and not for its citizens. India today, is asking for justice – Justice for Bihar Muzaffarpur shelter home rape case, Justice for the Utter Pradesh Deoria shelter home rape case, Justice for the kautha rape case, Justice for the Unano rape case and Justice for all of our sisters and daughters of the nation.

Being a free nation and a proud citizen, it’s our responsibility need to liberate ourselves from the caste and religious biases in which we often indulge. We must not force others to live the way we want them to and yet we want the ‘freedom’ to do exactly what each one of us wants.

Are we really proud of the present status of the country? Every day in the news, there is one disaster story after another and still after many years of independence a large number of people in our country who do not have the freedom to eat, sleep, bathe or go to the toilet.  It is a vital truth to accept as the number of Billionaires from India is increasing but at the same time number of people living below the poverty line is also increasing so what we have achieved through the independence?

India is in the process of change and we should not feel shame in accepting that our country is not the best in many areas (like Governance, security, infrastructure, and education, healthcare). It’s up to the conscious citizens to decide whether people would like to live in a Global power where creativity flourishes, ideas emerge or they want to live in a traditional way of functioning

So, on this day, we all citizen have to pledge to unite against every wrong doings in the society and should not differ in our voices against the quality of education, jobs, equality, justice for all and ultimate our working systems.  If everyone will give equal participation then no doubt India will find its real meaning of Independence.