15th August: New millennium.

It's 15th of August again, and we Indians are basking in the glory of having come 53 long years away from the days of British rule in 1947. A Golden Jubilee plus, in terms of the years our freedom has seen, but sadly that's all that remains to be a high point in the country's road towards progress. The question is, are we aware of all that has transpired in the past 50 odd years, or is it that we couldn't care less even if we were.

Bill Clinton so proudly exclaimed yesterday in the Democratic National Convention that "America, in the past eight years, has seen prosperity by choice and not by chance", and I was left to ask myself, will the largest democracy of this world ever have the luxury to enjoy prosperity, even by chance?

I remember having read somewhere that Winston Churchill once remarked (as an opposition candidate) that "Nothing would remain of this great country India, but a mass of warring tribes". He could see it, inspite of being a rank outsider. Alas, the future makers of our country, the men at helm, lacked his foresight. Today, the 'sovereign democratic republic' remains to be in the constitutional verbiage only. We are too busy with our petty regional identities to be able to rise above it and shine. Perhaps independence has found contorted manifestations, where we identify ourselves with fundamentalists. The secularism that we were so proud of dies a thousand deaths every time a Father Staines is burnt to ashes or a city takes to arms collectively against the shooting of a film.
Have we lost out on our sensibilities, or simply redefined them to suit our needs?

We sure can boast of a significant growth in a lot of areas. Our population has reached a billion, the illiteracy rate is growing, and inflation too is on the upside. Sadly much of the growth is in unwanted areas. Why are we, then, proud of another Independence Day? Do we need a prime minister, shouting from the top of Red fort to tell us what have been our achievements? What is it that we have achieved that we can proudly exhibit on another day of our Independence???

It's not that the achievements are non-existent. Only they are few and far. It's not that I have a personal vendetta against a country that I belong to and have spent my entire life in. It's the very fact that I take a lot of pride in it which makes me so bitter about it's shortcomings.

Success is always flaunted, it's the failures that, more often than naught, get missed out. Till the time we do not recognise these failures and make a sincere and conscious effort to uproot them completely, Independence Day will remain just another day for me.

Momentous but uneventful!