We Owe Our Freedom To These Martyrs

 

68 Years of freedom, now we've gotten used to it. Most of us never lived before independence so we do not have any real life experience of what it's like to be ruled by the British. Every year, on Independence Day, I remember our freedom fighters who sacrificed their life for our freedom; and it makes me realize that their generation was full of passion and patriotism. When I read the speeches of our leaders and poems of our krantikaris from that era, I feel so dwarf in front of them. It is almost impossible to believe that people like them ever walked on Earth. Just read these lines, don't they just make the blood in your body go tidal?

हम तो घर से ही थे निकले बाँधकर सर पर कफ़न,
जाँ हथेली पर लिये लो बढ चले हैं ये कदम.
जिन्दगी तो अपनी मॆहमाँ मौत की महफ़िल में है,
सरफ़रोशी की तमन्ना अब हमारे दिल में है

We left our home with the white cloth tied on our head, 

We are marching with our life in our palm, 

Our life is a guest at death's feast, 

We have a desire in our heart for Sarfaroshi.

(There is no word in English, that can do justice to the word "Sarfaroshi")

રક્ત ટપકતી સો સો ઝોળી સમરાંગણથી આવે,
કેસરવરણી સમરસેવિકા કોમલ સેજ બિછાવે;
ઘાયલ મરતાં મરતાં રે! માતની આઝાદી ગાવે.

(I am not going to even dare to translate this one.)

I am afraid after a few generations, people will doubt if these krantikaris and freedom fighters ever existed. And like usually what happens with the larger-than-life characters from history, like Ram, Krishna and Arjun, they will be a legend. When people hear about great characters like Ram, they say- "Oh! This is just a story, no prince would ever give up his kingdom and go to the woods for fourteen years." - We call it a story, rather than history, or we say- "Oh he was an avatar, a super-human, not a regular person like us"-  because we can't believe that a human being can sublime to this level and become so pious and virtuous.

When our great grand-kids will hear the stories of Gandhi, Bose, Sardar, Bhagat Singh, Azad, and many other nameless martyrs - it will be impossible for them to believe that a person can die for their country at the age of 23, that one person can unite 565 self governing princely states and make it one nation. Because our patriotism is limited to just changing our profile pic to the tricolor and watching a patriotic movie on Independence Day, it is hard for us to digest the fact that there were people who gave up everything in their life and dedicated every drop of their blood to our great nation.

When I read about the Jaliyawala Massacre, I feel bewildered to know that there were women and kids at that gathering. Today, how may women and kids care about our country, about the corruption, and poverty and injustice? (Not that the men care any more about our country than the women.) I wonder how these people could find time for patriotism from the trivialities of their daily life. In India, these days, I see women are busy working full-time, plus taking care of household chores, taking care of the kids, the husband, the in-laws, etc. But then, the women from that era also did all of these things, except for the job part.

The rector in my hostel in Bhavnagar was a freedom fighter, she didn't marry because she wanted to dedicate her life completely for our country. She used to tell us the stories of how they used to follow Gandhiji's Quit India Movement. We are fortunate that we at least met these freedom fighters in our generation. Our next generation won't even have that opportunity. My heart aches for the condition of my country, but I never took any time to go out and do something for my country. And these awesome people spent their entire life fighting for the freedom of the country.

We, the current generation, don't even have one per cent of the patriotism of that of these freedom fighters. People like me who left our country would have less than one per cent. (By the way, I left India on Independence Day, can't get any worse than this. Today is the 7th anniversary of that day, but I will talk about it next week.)

I wonder if we come across these freedom fighters somewhere after we die, how will we face them? They'll be like- "Is this how you used your freedom we died for ? Shame on you !"

We spend our entire lives just living for ourselves and our family, and we feel accomplished and content at the end thinking- "We fulfilled our duties."- But looking at the lives of these freedom fighters, it seems like we are not doing enough. We are not doing anything for our country. Every year, on Independence Day, I think about this, and then by the next morning, I forget about it.

But this time, I want to make it a point to change my attitude towards my fellow Indians. On this Independence Day, the least we can do is to make a pledge to respect our fellow Indians, remove all the barriers that divide us and unite as a nation.