Couple of days ago, I was watching the movie Krantiveer. For those who may not have seen it, allow me to give you a brief update. Nana Patekar, plays a man called Pratap, who has no aim or ambition in life. However, he is a good man at heart, and his observations, are acerbic, honest, and brutally truthful. The movie details incidents, which make Pratap from a man of no vision to a man with a mission and vision statement (if I may use that term). The movie isn't a master piece, but Nana Patekar's fiery acting, is just breathtaking. The observances he makes, are stark and without any sugarcoating. Of particular note is the outburst when a woman is screaming for male help as two male thugs try forcing her into prostitution. The other, and IMO by far a more powerful speech is at the end, delivered at Kranti Maidan, when he rightly points out our inherent deficiences. Although some parts of the monologue are heavily jignositic, it must not take away from the more poignant moments of the scene. It is simply brilliant.
Anyway, after watching Krantiveer, I sat back and I thought to myself, we as Indians haven't changed a bit. We boast about our culture, our family values, our "morality", our this and that, yet we are second in the world with AIDS, have largest amount of illiterates in the world, is home to a conflict that has taken over 60 years, yet shows no sign of resolution and much more. We are world leaders in many areas, but not all of them are ones to be proud of. For every Narayana Murthy, we have a Phoolan Devi, for every Ambani, Tata, Birla, we have a Laloo Prasad Yadav, Jagdish Tytler, Shibu Soren. Is this something I look at and say, I am proud to be Indian??
60 years ago, on August 15th 1947, Shri Jawaharlal Nehru said those immortal words in the Constituent Assembly "Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially ... The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us. Are we brave enough and wise enough to grasp this opportunity and accept the challenge of the future". Our freedom, as Amit Varma so often notices, can sometimes be very superficial. See this for more details. It is sad to note that while India's Constitution in Article 19(1) provides Fundamental Rights, it applies various restrictions in 19(2), with vague sounding definitions as "morality", "decency" etc. Contrast this to the American Bill of Rights, namely the First Amendment, stating "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances". Thats it. Nothing about morality, decency, public good, no Kantian ideals there. Just a simple rule. Is it any wonder why the call America the free country?
However, let us not rush into blame the Constitution for everything bad that has happened to India, neither should we blame the politicians. The Preamble of the Indian Constitution reads "We the People of the Sovreign ... Republic of India". Then why, when some scandal breaks, when we see riots, when violence breaks out, when India loses the cricket, why oh why do we friggin blame other people. Sure, those in power abuse their responsibility more often then not, so why the hell do we not say, "ENOUGH!!" We keep on voting the same or similar jackass to power, and then sit back and say "Politics has ruined our nation". I ask you this, has politics ruined USA? Australia? UK? New Zealand? If these countries are "untainted" by politics, on what basis of evidence can we say politics has ruined India. We are a nation of one billion people. Yes it is hard to represent them, as the demographics of US, Australia etc, are vastly different from the demographics of India. However, we Indians are used to slavery. As Pratap says in Krantiveer, we enjoyed firstly being enslaved by Kings, then the British, and now we love being enslaved by politicians. We revel in our ability to bend and evade rules, we bask in the glory of being able to pay off a cop, although we may have committed a serious traffic offence. Heck, if middle class and upper-middle class elitists like us, don't give a royal damn about the country, why on God's green earth should those, who don't even know if they are going to get two square meals a day do so? We blame poverty for all our ills, but what have we done to uproot the causes? The best way of eradicating poverty is by redistribution of wealth, and embrace of market reforms. However, we are lazy to implement that, but are active at crying ourselves hoarse.
One may argue, that all countries fight have their own fair share of problems. I concur. However, I am yet to see a country, so laid-back about its problems, that rather than facing them head on, we'd rather go to another country, and settle there for a "better future". All I say is, well with that attitude, we might as well invite a foreign ruler back. Or rather, should we be like the UNSC, and get the one of the P5 members to rule over us for a period of time before handing it over to the next member?
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