Saw Rang De Basanti again. For the nth time. And it always leaves me a little dry-throated and misty-eyed. Is this the India that people like Mahatma Gandhi (yeah, I admire him. So f**k yourself if you don't agree with me), Subhash Chandra Bose, Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad and countless unknowns gave their lives for? So that we could remember them, briefly, on certain days and then head to the closest mall for a movie? Haven't we lost the plot when after 60 years of independence 300 million of our people live below the 'poverty line', where state governments run coordinated pogroms and millions of peoples are displaced just to satisfy the needs of a few. Is this what our soldiers lay down their lives for even today? Is this what independence has come to mean?
No. Not to me. I find it very hard to digest the fact that I am part of an elite class that does not seem to think that freedom applies to everyone. How many of us have stopped to think while bursting diwali crackers about the child labourers in Sivakasi? Does it even register in our consciousness when we buy designer clothes that the equisite stitches are in fact done by small children who will never have the chance to wear normal clothes, forget these designer labels? Our sheer callousness doesnt stop with our fellow humans only. Oh no, we have to include the entire animal & plant kingdoms in our greed & apathy. So we lop of trees when they come in the way of our hoardings, shoot dogs on the street when they become too numerous, pollute our holy rivers, strangle gangetic dolphins. All in the name of development. Come again? Dev-what? In whose name?
It's at times like this when I wish that there was an easy solution. But like one of the characters says in Rang De Basanti, 'how many of them are we going to shoot? These corrupt politicians & bureaucrats haven't fallen from the skies. They've come from us'. And hence it is up to us to change things. So do we join the police, the military and the IAS as Rang De Basanti would like us to? Well, yes. Some of the change has to come from within the system. But I think that unless there the system is forced to change, things will never really improve. At least not fast enough. And this is exactly where I think that individual citizens & corporates must take a stand. We cannot use this country like its resources are meant for consumption in only our livetimes. No sir, as cliched as it sounds, unless we think about what country we will leave behind our generation will be remembered as one which had the power and the chance to change things. But instead stood back & waited until it was too late.
No. Not to me. I find it very hard to digest the fact that I am part of an elite class that does not seem to think that freedom applies to everyone. How many of us have stopped to think while bursting diwali crackers about the child labourers in Sivakasi? Does it even register in our consciousness when we buy designer clothes that the equisite stitches are in fact done by small children who will never have the chance to wear normal clothes, forget these designer labels? Our sheer callousness doesnt stop with our fellow humans only. Oh no, we have to include the entire animal & plant kingdoms in our greed & apathy. So we lop of trees when they come in the way of our hoardings, shoot dogs on the street when they become too numerous, pollute our holy rivers, strangle gangetic dolphins. All in the name of development. Come again? Dev-what? In whose name?
It's at times like this when I wish that there was an easy solution. But like one of the characters says in Rang De Basanti, 'how many of them are we going to shoot? These corrupt politicians & bureaucrats haven't fallen from the skies. They've come from us'. And hence it is up to us to change things. So do we join the police, the military and the IAS as Rang De Basanti would like us to? Well, yes. Some of the change has to come from within the system. But I think that unless there the system is forced to change, things will never really improve. At least not fast enough. And this is exactly where I think that individual citizens & corporates must take a stand. We cannot use this country like its resources are meant for consumption in only our livetimes. No sir, as cliched as it sounds, unless we think about what country we will leave behind our generation will be remembered as one which had the power and the chance to change things. But instead stood back & waited until it was too late.
The following snap is from Greenpeace India's website. I think it says it all....
The choice is ours. Everyday one reads newspaper reports of how the Earth is getting into an ecological debt. And as anyone who has any sense will know, there comes a time when a debt must be repayed. The question is this..... are we going to help repay this debt or are we going to pass it on to our children, with accrued interest of course?
2 comments:
very nicely written. :)
Thank you R Singh. Coming from a accomplished blogger such as yourself, it really feels nice.
:-)
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