One cannot
help wondering on the 60th year of Independence as to who got it! From
our child hood days we have heard that it is a festival of great significance
to all the citizens of our country India or Bharath. The doubt seems
to be about the two countries that exist in one boundary - one for the
haves while the other is for - you have guessed it the have nots. Again,
among the haves we have the minority and the majority communities -
where the divide seems to be even greater. It is worse to be a have
not belonging to some communities! The gender bias too is there. The
worst situated are those who belong to the female gender among the minorities
and the lower castes. The lower castes particularly the Daliths have
no religion they are the outcastes and the untouchables who are classified
as the panchamas, out of the chaturvarna or the four caste system.
When the
country got its independence I was told, because I was not born then,
there were great festivities - all citizens came out on the streets
and celebrated what they thought was the new era which would end all
the previous wrongs and be the beginning of a just, equitable society.
The momentous events of that time have been etched in the memories of
all of us including the famous tryst with destiny speech of Pandit Jawaharlal
Nehru which has been considered as one of the all time greats. The first
Independence Day was also marred by one of the largest migrations in
the history of mankind and one of the bloodiest chapters too. The partition
of India is to be forever a black mark in the history of this subcontinent
its scars still not totally healed. That the British chose to declare
the independence at midnight of the August 14-15th is another story
connected with astrology and an auspicious date for the birth of a new
nation. The next day was an inauspicious one and it was not possible
to have the event on the 14th as it was to be the D-day for the birth
of Pakistan. The British had no respect for the Indian superstitions
and a via media was arrived at and so the freedom came at midnight.
It was
expected by many that India would be a Hindu state based on religion,
to balance the Muslim neighbor. That was not to be so. India became
a secular republic where religion supposedly would have nothing to do
with the state and all citizens would be treated equally regardless
of the religion they would profess or none if they chose to. Having
got independence, the next task was to draft an appropriate constitution
and it was the constituent assembly under the chairmanship of Bhimrao
Ambedkar, the champion of Daliths that the task was done admirably though
it took a couple of years.
Whether
the state has lived up to the expectations of the people is a question
to be pondered over at this juncture. In various fronts the state has
failed miserably while in some it has done fairly. When the British
ruled, it was the Zamindars, the Rajas and the various Toadies of the
empire who owned the land. The British had been quite liberal with land,
particularly since it was not theirs and had generously granted it as
a favor for the services done to the empire. In a free country, the
land reforms were to be expected and it was hoped that the tiller of
the land would soon become the owner. Sixty years after 1947 we see
that legislations have been enacted in only three states - West Bengal,
Kerala and Karnataka. But one sees that when the proposals for SEZs
came up the very same lethargic, monolithic government machinery sprang
into action with unexpected agility and within six months all the legislation
had been passed. As incidents in a number of places have shown governments
of every political shade have bent backwards to please those who wanted
to set up such. The wishes of the people losing their lands and livelihood
have been totally ignored during this process. Well, so much for equality
- one of the fundamental rights under the constitution. All sorts of
excuses have been made as to why the land reforms could not be done,
but the main reason seems to be the lack of will power and the opposition
of the land owner vested interests who always seem to occupy the seats
of power.
Independence
for the down trodden should have been also from the caste based oppression
and the tyranny of thousands of years. In a country in which the caste
into which one is born decides ones diet, dress, place of stay, friends,
enemies etc. the oppressed expected the end of their exploitation. One
does not have to look far to see that it has not been so. While lip
service has been done to the cause, the actual state of affairs shows
that the caste system is well and kicking in India, 2007. Despite all
the claims to modernity, most of the marriages are within the same caste.
Some professions are carried out by a particular caste and that caste
only. When the drainage lines in your area get blocked take a good look
at the people who clear them. It will be a dalith. No upper caste person
will do it because there is reservation for such jobs and everybody
is happy about that. Go to any medical college, the cadavers are loaded
on the dissection table by those who belong to a particular caste. None
seems to be bothered by this reservation for one particular caste. The
champions of equality who get flustered when reservation for seats in
institutes of higher education or jobs is proposed and take to the streets
at the proverbial drop of a hat never seem to notice this sort of reservation.
If the dalith chooses to exercise his independence by purchasing things
with his own money that is not liked by the upper castes, who promptly,
violently show them their place - some times that has been the grave
yard. Many times the upper castes have been very sympathetic to the
daliths and have cremated the bodies on the spot to spare the survivors
of the family of unnecessary expenditure! The law which is equal to
all has not seen the plight of these people because the courts have
to go by evidence and this is absent. The whole law and order machinery
being in the clutches of the upper castes sees to it that the evidence
is never forthcoming.
Equality in the eyes of law is something
that has been guaranteed to every citizen of this country. Well does
that exist? We force a retrial for Jessica Lal and Priyadarshini Mattoo
murder cases by having candle light marches and protests. Fair enough
- that should be done. What about Daliths of Khairlanji? What about
the Daliths of Kolar who were burnt alive? How about the Daliths of
Haryana who were lynched for skinning a dead cow? What about those upper
caste leaders who went on record that the life of a cow
is more precious to them than that of a Dalith? When Sanjay Dutt was
sentenced for his role in the Mumbai explosions of 1993 or rather for
his involvement with the accused the long arm of law was duly applauded.
These incidents had taken place as a reaction to the organized murders
of thousands in 1992 following the demolition of the Babri masjid. In
all fairness that trial should have been taken up first as that event
occurred earlier and more people lost their lives. Not a whimper about
it. The Srikrishna committee report which has pointed out the damning
nexus between the communal elements and the police has been gathering
dust and probably has been already consumed by termites. What about
the anti Sikh riots of 1984? They were forgotten by the dictum of the
rulers that when a big tree falls, the earth shakes. The accused, the
convicted and the yet to be convicted are all walking free and some
of them have passed away from the world.
The gender
based discrimination has no place in a free country. As of now the gender ratio
stands at very low levels skewed against the girl child. One cannot attribute
any biological reasons for it. The selective abortions of the female fetus are
the culprit and the bias towards the male child the driving force behind these.
The girl child even after birth has to face discrimination in every aspect of
life. The very birth of a girl is considered as an ill omen and a curse on the
family. All this thanks to Manu who decreed that the female deserves no freedom.
The superstition that only the male progeny can dispatch his deceased parents to
heaven, is a major factor. Parents naturally anxious to go there desperately
seek a male child and as a consequence terminate the pregnancies when the fetus
is not a male. This happens despite the bans on prenatal sex determinations etc.
It is not that female has better chances after birth. The girl child is
discriminated in every stage of life. The married woman has to be forever
subservient to her husband and his family. A widow has to follow an austere life
if she prefers to live after her husband dies. The ideal choice for her would be
to burn to death on the husband’s funeral pyre and attain the status of a sati
or a godly woman to be worshipped. Facing sexual exploitation at the work place,
travel and in every aspect of life is a lifelong struggle for every woman born
in India and sixty years after independence has hardly made any difference to
that.
It would not
have been out of place to hope for independence from the superstitions that have
been a plague on our society since time immemorial. It was hoped that these
would be banished from this free country. The experience of past six decades
proves that it is not so. We see that the number of these increasing. Newer
varieties of superstitions have been added. We have been liberal in importing
them from all over the world too. Inanities like astrology have been accorded
the status of serious subjects of study at Universities. In every aspect of life
superstitious beliefs have been allowed to dominate. The timing of swearing in
of cabinets, launching of rockets, foundation stones of Institutes of
Science are all determined by quacks. In the field of medicine quackery has
taken its toll. In the past six decades the life expectancy of the average
Indian has gone up by nearly 25 years. But, that has also introduced its own
problems. The prosperity has caused a myriad of life style diseases. The
stupendous advances in technology have not been able to inculcate scientific
temper among the general public.
One can
say that the ballot box has empowered us. It has done a lot to preserve
the sanity of this nation. In 1977 it helped us to throw out the dictatorial Indira Gandhi and her despotic son - Sanjay. The ballot paper being
the only weapon in the hands of the common
citizen has been the tool which has been put to use to throw out those
in power. One can always feel that the replacements have not lived up
to expectations, but that would be another story. While the ballot box
ended the emergency and the dictatorial tendencies of Mrs. Indira Gandhi,
the very electorate brought her back to power when they felt that the
successors were worse. The very same electorate proved that India was
not so shining to Vajpayee and co in 2004. In the next general election
it may be some one else’s turn to learn that the Indian electorate
cannot be taken for granted and can see through any one however clever
they may think themselves to be. That can be considered as a major achievement
of independent India despite of all the limitations of electoral politics.
We have
accomplished a lot on paper. The GNP is going up by figures close to double
digits, we are going to be the second largest economy on the globe within the
next three decades are some of the things being bandied about. Are we going to
do that with the largest number of illiterates on this earth? Will the economic
super power also have the largest number of child laborers? Shall we have the
most skewed gender ratios on the planet? Shall we qualify as the most
superstitious nation? These are the questions for us to ponder over as we
celebrate the sixty years of independence from the rule of the British. True
independence seems to be very far away for many of us, particularly those who
belong to the under privileged of the society whose numbers seem to be growing
at a phenomenal rate.
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