Have we attained Independence in Real Terms?

So 15th August, 2015 marks as our 69th Independence Day. Another year of freedom, equality and sovereignty, as is believed by the majority, comes to an end. The kites flying in the sky not only serve as a means of celebration but also symbolize the high hopes and aspirations that our nation covets this 15th August.

India has come a long way since it got independence in 1947. The journey was definitely full of hurdles and pothole but they couldn’t stop India from emerging as the largest democracy, largest open economy and 7th largest nation in the world.

But there’s still a question that frequently pops-up in my mind “Are we really independent?”

Did independence merely mean sending Whites back to their nation? Did it only mean freeing ourselves from the bondage, from the slavery?

If yes, then you definitely need to give it a second thought.

A recent incident that flooded the headlines few days’ back was police raiding hotels in Mumbai and humiliating and assaulting couples who were making love behind closed doors, in the reign of privacy with mutual consent. Policemen believe that they served as a saviour to our society; they performed the role of moral policing. But is this where we actually needed such a 'responsible' action on their part? Invading somebody's privacy is an act of audacity but preventing people from molesting women and children in open spaces is not! This perhaps implies then that making love is a couple's fault, most evidently the guy's fault but raping a girl is a girl's fault. It's her clothes or actions that were provocative. Is that what the police and politicians wish to preach our civilians? It takes years to make an action against the rape accusers but the raid and attack on the love birds was quite an instant exertion.

Then we recently witnessed porn ban. Well who can forget that? Our concerned government banned 857 porn sites due to interim reasons. I mean yes, I totally support ban on child pornography but what about the other sites? And not just porn sites, the government regulated the ban on some other humorous sites as well which apparently serve no pornographic content. We in India talk about freedom, but was it really a justified action? Isn't this the violation of Article 21 (Right to Personal Liberty) of an individual?

All of these cases made me ponder on the definition of independence.

India has revolved? Yes.

Is it still attached to its roots, societal beliefs and practices? Yes.

Is it time to do away with the unwanted societal obligations? Yes.

Another issue we have been witnessing since a while is homosexuality. Supreme Court turns the clock back with gay sex ban. Section 377 of the Indian penal code makes sex with person of same gender punishable by law. I fail to comprehend that how something as beautiful as love can be a heinous crime in front of the law? Love is love. Whether a man loves a woman or a man loves a man or a woman loves a woman, hardly makes any difference. Love doesn't follow religion, caste, creed or gender. It happens, eventually on its own. Those lovers are sinners just because their bodies and hearts crave for someone of their own gender? Isn't it the violation of basic human rights?

It feels mentally bone-tiring to notice all these backward thoughts and activities that we're still clinging on to.

But then, I get this thought that how can we free ourselves from the old school behaviour, the traditional frontier? How to be determined enough to fight for what's right and what's not, for what is morally correct and what is not and make our judiciary realize that it's completely our choice to decide whom we want to love and whom we don't and what should be watchable and what not?

And if it happens,

Will it be still this difficult to free ourselves? Will we still be slaves to our own partisan minds, to our hidebound society?

But this won't be done on its own and neither this is a Bollywood film where a hero will come for our rescue, as the liberator of humanity and society.

We all know that the answer lies within us. It's high time we make our politicians, cops and society understand the real definition of independence. It's time that we make them discern that independence isn't only about relieving ourselves from the colonial rule, it's much more than that.

It's about releasing ourselves from all the evils, mentally, emotionally and physically.

A lot has been said, now it's high time to do something. Chak De!

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

#editorial