Soliloquy

India today finds itself at a crossroads: the decision of whether to move ahead with the times by embracing the West or to stay stagnant by sticking to her own convictions has been killing her for quite some time now. But India is no longer that meagre, weak, submissive land of Maharajahs, snake charmers and drunken sadhus that the West has always been fascinated about. India today has moved on to being the home of teeming households and budding businesses, of gold medals and bronze derelicts, of high expectations and of low inferiority complexes.
Welcome to the India of 2017.

The India of 2017 is a dissimilar animal from the one projected by all those great men and women of 1947 who strove to make freedom seem possible to us all. The India of 2017 is brash, confident, risk-taking and strikingly captivating. She is no longer any stranger to the ways of the world and has quietly joined in the bandwagon of all developing nations striving towards achieving the ultimate goal of being poverty and illiteracy-free. India has adopted changes and made her citizens move along with them, while at the same time punishing those who fail to respect the consecrated tricolour. She has joined the race in nuclear arms and pushed the limit in air and artillery support. India today has supporters in China and friends in the United States, allies in the Soviet and acquaintances in the Middle East.

The India of 1947 was different. Back then, she had just wanted to survive. She had wanted enough food and just about enough place to rest for the night. The India of 1947 was built on subsistence and a will to fight against all odds to survive. Living on a day-to-day basis with roti, kapda and makaan would have seemed enough for her back then.

But. And there is always a but.

The India of 2017 has forgotten what 1947 was. Perhaps she does not even know that there was something called 1857 that was far more important than Quit India of 1940. Maybe she has never heard of Khudiram Bose and Veer Savarkar, or of Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt. But the India of 2017 has heard of Kim Kardashian for sure.

The India of 2017 has embraced Snapchat and WhatsApp, and followed every move made by Shah Rukh Khan on Instagram. I can call up anyone from the audience today and they’ll surely beat me on a quiz on what Virat Kohli had for dinner yesterday.

However, the India of 2017 has forgotten her heroes standing on her borders and has welcomed them with stones and pebbles when they come home. Some of them were lynched to death, but India was more busy with new Facebook updates. The issue of nationalism has gone so far now that her Supreme Court had to make it compulsory for students in the state of Tamil Nadu to sing the national anthem.

India woke up from its deep sleep on those fateful nights of 26 November 2008 and 16 December 2012 but slowly, silently, she has been lulled into a trance-like stance on every social issue plaguing her today.

There will always be naysayers and there will always be optimists. I choose to be in the latter group but India in 2017 is eating away at me,
AS I AM ALL THE MORE AFRAID THAT NIRBHAYA’S INDIA IS GOING BACK TO SLEEP AGAIN.