Last week we celebrated 64th Republic Day. I was wondering through out this week that what was so new about this 'Republic Day', in fact we have been doing this exercise for last six odd decades, I mean what is so new about this time?
Like any other Indian I obviously felt proud to see our military, cultural, historic, democratic heritage and achievement on Rajpath. But that was just momentary, because this is the same Rajpath which a month back was closed for citizens, it is the same Rajpath where citizens of this Republic were beaten up for holding a demonstration to enact strong laws for rape and other sexual assault on women.
We have 'showcased' a missile which could strike at targets ranging from 3500 to around 5000 Kilometers, sounds great but for me that hardly matters because I suspect if in my lifetime I could see the utility of that missile. What I see day in day out is humiliation by our neighbor. How can I forget that one of my our soldier's head was beheaded by them. What did we do? Nothing, absolutely nothing. If a nation doesn't feel agitated when its solder's body comes home without head, do you expect such nation to ever use a missile. Absolutely not, never. I just don't understand what is the use of showing Agni's almighty on this road of concrete.
Thats about military, now tell me what cultural heritage we are proud of ? For the sake of vote bank politics, and appeasement on the basis of religion and caste our entire socio-cultural fabric has been put at risk of collapse.
I would say that democracy is at his worst in this country, we can only compete with Pakistan or some countries in Africa. Our political parties actually don't understand what democracy is all about. Infact, allmost all national/regional parties are like family run businesses. Electoral process as rightly described by Anna Hazare ji is trapped in the vicious cycle of 'satta se paisa aur paise se satta'.
After more than six decades of becoming a Republic, we dont have a strong and more importantly independent anti-corruption agency. Police reforms are being delayed for so many years. Cases pending before judiciary are around 3 crores or probably more than that, where is the philosophy of 'justice delayed is justice denied' has gone?
Education and health system are inefficient, inapt and overcrowded. If we look at some of our health indicators, neighboring countries such as Sri Lanka and Bangladesh may perform better than us.
We are a nation of 125 crore people, guess what was our medal tally in Olympics? There are heads of our sports bodies who are leading sports federations and association un-successfully for 2-3 decades and there is zero accountability. Height !
There are successive governments ruling states and country for more than one term, if you tell me one single government which've got a vision for say 2020 or for 2030 I 'll be glad. We don't think for that long, all our actions are reactive rather than proactive.
List is endless but tell me one more thing, what is this concept of calling this country 'India' in English and 'Bharat' in Hindi, What should it be called in Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Kashmiri, Marathi, Assamese etc. Stop this non sense.
Tell me one thing on which I should feel proud of, until then I am not proud of being an Indian and once again A very happy (belated) republic day!
