It was Indian Independence Day celebration on 15th August. Pakistan celebrated the same on 14th August, Indonesia on 17th August and several of the countries celebrate this around the same time. There are so many reasons to celebrate this. There are a lot of questions raised every year as well on what this celebration really means. I have seen a few articles and posts also about whether India is really Independent! The fact that someone in India is able to write that already means that India is…
There are valid questions raised however on the speed of development, cost of the delays in action, justice system, modernization of the culture, employment of the unemployable, worth of any contractual commitments and value of such independence. Everyone will agree that the value of independence is always more for the ones who don’t have it. Freedom, lets agree, is defined as the granting of fundamental rights to the citizens of that country, generally by the constitution of the country. There are a lot of people who do not know all the fundamental rights in their own country. Such people do not acknowledge or accept that different countries have their own fundamental rights. The comparison of rights in different countries can be found on www.constitutioncenter.org for those who are interested to learn more about what they have which others don’t.
The system in any country is not perfect. The constitution of every country is different, depending on their acceptance of the norms set by the world. The value of an act or right varies between the people of different social circumstances. The rights written down are different from the rights practiced. This can be brought down to the culture and adaptation. For example, only 161 countries ‘allow’ for right to education as a fundamental right. In 191 countries (not all) there is now right to equality enshrined in constitutions. Despite that, UNESCO estimated that 2/3rd of the illiterate people in the world are women.
Democracy is overrated only because people have too many expectations from the politicians whom they elect by majority but still consider to be useless. It was not long ago that a ‘paradise on balance’ was plugged out of the race competing to be a sustainable city country. Citizens sometimes can be responsible themselves for asking for the unknown when they do not value what they have in hand. Think about it, the celebration of Independence of your country thus is about celebrating what you have at present and what you have the potential for, not for complaining about what you wish there was!
Capt Pappu Sastry/ CEO – ASL
