Gaurav Yadav for BeyondHeadlines
Republic means a country in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives and which has an elected or nominated President. For me this is merely an explanation and is far away from the reality.
A nation where 80% of its people are living below poverty line, almost 20% of the population is starving to death and around 10% of the population lives a sub-human life, you cannot assume that the country’s decisions are held by its peoples.
It is a shame and serious thought to ponder, that people are dying for food but lakhs of tonnes of food grains rots in the FCI storage houses without being made available to the needy.
Should a nation celebrate its 63rd year of Constitution formation when its farmer are committing suicides. Why there is hopelessness among the homeless, why there is difference in deliverance of education between rich and poor, why there’s delay in delivering justice. How can one hope to receive satisfaction from the words of preamble that we are ‘Sovereign, Socialist, Secular, Democratic, and Republic State’.
Justice is a far cry where you spend your whole life knocking the door but door never opens. More than 30 Million cases are pending in the Indian courts. It creates intense feeling of anger, frustration and helplessness. As long as the Indian Government continues to bureaucratically take the decisions we will be forced to obey the laws made by them. Leading ourselves to more misery and despair!
Liberty is merely a word, we don’t have the rights to think freely or express openly what our government doesn’t want to hear. If this wasn’t the case then great painter M.F. Hussain would have not died outside India. People like Arvind Kejriwal are opposed at every step and their each expression is connected to Anarchism, its height of mobocracy.
There can be no liberty in India until there is an emphasis on constrained government power. If individual rights and liberties are to be protected and maximized, there should be a minimal level of government intervention.
Only one line comes in my mind when I think about equality in India what W.C Fields said “I am free of all prejudices I hate everyone equally”. This is a real face of our society where untouchability is the worst form of slavery and it is still going on in our society. Manual scavenging is still a disgusting reality that we normally come across if we just walk into sub-urban areas. We believe it or not but whole nation is divided according caste, creed, religion and region. Polarization has been used as a powerful tool by our politicians to divide the nation, particularly ahead of elections.
I feel it’s time to change our constitution as per need of the people of 21 century. It has failed in fulfilling the words of Preamble. I also don’t feel ashamed of saying that India is not a democratic republic state. It is a mobocratic state where actual representative are not the people of India but a few elected representative of political parties whose policies are an utter failure in uplifting the people of India since last six decades. It has only benefited the industrialist and the upper strata of the society.
Sense of freedom to me is like a bird captured in a big cage where she is free to roam but not free to fly away. “And for to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others”. “And only to deal with this unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion”.
This Republic Day is a reminder to me to find the answers to thousands of ‘Why’ coming in my mind and to gather a spirit to raise a voice for new Constitution.
Jai Bhagat, Jai Bharat!