They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759

Sixty years of freedom. Sixty years of democracy. And most of us living today have been born in free India. After sixty years of Independence, we can no longer continue to blame colonialism for our failures and inadequacies. Definitely not the generation that started life in the past two decades.

I wish I were born on Independence Day. I"d be sixty in a couple of days and the whole nation would celebrate the day with me! But are we celebrating? Are we really aware of what being citizens of Independent India means? Or is Independence Day just another holiday?

Unfortunately, I also know an India where people still don"t know what the fuss is all about! It"s the day they get sweets from the "babus" and "netas" who visit them and hoist a flag and shout slogans. Their lives have not changed much in the last millenium. They are still isolated and ignorant. And they way they are treated, one would get the impression that they are second class citizens.

Yes, I am talking about the vast rural masses, especially the tribals, the untouchables, the poor. And believe me, this country"s majority consists of such people. People who don"t know what electricity is, have never been on a bus, never walked on paved roads, and going to school is something meant only for the children of the rich "sahabs".

So as the nation turns sixty. I will spending my time with them. That"s the least I could do. After all, people like me live better because of their toil. Because of the food they produce, because we can take away their resources without giving them their due. Becasue of their penury and ignorance, people like me can be on top of the pyramid.

And while I am spending time with them, I will also be thinking of all those who, in their misplaced idealism destroyed their own homes so that you and I could call ourselves "free". People who sacrificed their lives and their loves in the belief that they were leaving a free country for posterity. We don"t remember them. We don"t even know their names!

I"m glad I was born in India. If I had a choice, I would willingly be born again in this country. But hopefully as a dalit or a tribal in a remote village and be able to write a blog like I am doing today. Only then would I know that I am a Free Indian.

Happy Independence Day. Enjoy. Feel good. But spare a thought for those who gave it to us. And also for those who don"t know the meaning of "freedom" as yet.


Men fight for liberty and win it with hard knocks. Their children, brought up easy, let it slip away again, poor fools. And their grandchildren are once more slaves. --D.H. Lawrence, 1922