uncomfortable questions! (if you are done with celebrating I-Day, then read this!)

Every Independence Day comes with a barrage of information about our valiant freedom fighters and our extraordinary freedom struggle. Though it is essential to keep reminding ourselves of the indomitable spirit of our freedom struggle and the priceless sacrifices our forefathers made to ensure our liberation from foreign rule, it is equally important that we realize the present worth of our independence and what we have made of it.

Today, we live in an independent India where girls are molested and then blamed for provocative dresses and couples are killed for cross cultural marriages. An India where working in another state may be more dangerous than taking up a job in another country, where the chasm between religions and castes deepens with every impending election! Where the cities prosper with high rises and glittering pubs while villages suffer in silent seclusion and penury. It is an India that refuses to protect its citizens from constant terrorist attacks, turns a blind eye to people's movements and lets corruption gnaw away at heard earned money.

Who is to blame? The governments that are elected by people themselves? The administrators that rise from within the masses?

It is easy to blame others but a look at the mirror may answer most questions. As much as we try to deny it, we must hold ourselves collectively responsible for the state of our nation. For a nation is what its people make it. Solutions will not be found in text books or in how other countries have dealt with their issues. The solutions must be pragmatic and indigenous. But for the right solutions we must first ask the right questions however uncomfortable they might be!

The revolutionaries and heroes of our freedom struggle have given us a nation which has secularism, democracy, tolerance and patriotism all interwoven in a beautiful but fragile social fabric, let us pledge today to strengthen this frailing fabric by weaving into it strong threads of beautiful colours!