It has been a strange 64th Independence Day, like many others before. Even as our PM, Manmohan Singh, was making a speech at the Red Fort, a 14 year old boy who had scored 97% in his board exams and was a bright student of ITI, was accidentally electrocuted by the naked hanging electrical wires of the MCD. And even as people were out, wining and dining, Ram Sene struck a pub in Mysore for “immoral” activities. The place was ransacked and people were injured due to the violent attack. What freedom was this where a moral brigade, an extra-constitutional body was violating the very tenets of the constitution; and ironically on Independence day.
While our PM was making an appeal for peace and prosperity, a CISF jawan was beheaded by a maoist in bright daylight; he was pulled out of a bus and done to death. And if that was not enough, a shoe was hurled at the CM of J&K, Omar Abdullah, who was also giving out a message for calm in the valley during his flag hoisting ceremony.
While malls and shopping arcades were giving away discount sales, the farmers of Vidharbha were busy burning effigies of Aamir Khan to protest against the casual attitude with which farmers have been portrayed and their issue of farmer-suicide is being made a mockery. They accused Aamir of playing with their emotions and at the same time making money out of their misery.
All this happened on 15th Aug, sigh! What kind of freedom is this where we are always under siege from someone or the other. It just reminds me of a quote by Jean Jacques Rousseau that goes “Man is born free, yet he is everywhere in chains”.
It’s not difficult to market Gandhi and his philosophies; it’s been done to death by people who have used ‘khadi’, ‘charkha’ meaninglessly and his discourses and speeches have been snipped to make quotable quotes. But then, it’s not easy to market him either for precisely the same reasons.
crazyrals 