India won its autonomy on August 15, 1947. At the stroke of midnight, as the world slept, India awoke to life and freedom.
Sometimes, when I read too much about all the wrongs happening in the country, I wonder: why did our revolutionaries fight so hard for Independence across two long centuries. What made them persist, even in the face of religious & caste divisions, state backed racism, unchecked famines, coercion, prison sentences, lathi charges and certain death?
And then it hits me, suppose you were kidnapped when you were little, by a seemingly rich, well mannered family who didn’t kidnap you because they needed a child but planned to exploit you for their own good, without the littlest regard for your well being, while your parents looked for you everywhere. Poor and emaciated as they were, they loved you unconditionally and did their best to give you a better childhood.
The British Raj in India was built at the banks of Great Britain’s strategy of imperial plunder cutting across geographies and continents. Their entry into India through trade and the transfer of power to the Crown after the failure of the first organized armed resistance in 1857.
Even at the cost of losing a few privileges. The fight for freedom wasn’t just overthrowing the British, who were already riddled with the crushing financial burden of the World War, domestic disquiet, growing civilian disobedience in occupied colonies including India, and wanted a smooth exit.
When they left, they left a land swallowed by filth, mud and blood. The wound of partition, that left millions dead, and some more permanently displaced. Though not the first time they invoked partition to ‘punish’ any resistance to their rule, the Bengal partition in 1905 on religious line, was partially accomplished to silence a rising dissent in Bengal. However, it would be reversed less than a decade later due to sustained protests under the broader Nationalist movement.
Though we won our freedom through decades of resistance and negotiations, it was a weak and poverty stricken country that we were left with. From 1947 to now, it has been a slow but steady development for the most part. We’ve taken leaps forward and also backward ( at times), our media has tasted restrictions, and also given in, but there have been a chosen few who have always spoken truth to power throughout our history. We must commend them for upholding India’s syncretic values.
The first Indian cabinet led by Pandit Nehru, Sardar Patel, Maulana Abdul Kalam Azaad & others anchored us on the ideals of democracy, secularism, and public welfare, while embracing science and innovation.
Nehru may be polarizing today, in part due to RSS-BJP narratives that demonize him while hailing apologists like Savarkar as reformists. Yet, it was Nehru and Patel who prevented India’s Balkanization, steering us through an extraordinary game of thrones to build a nation rooted in religious plurality and democracy.
Fingers in symphony 