Kashish Malhotra
“We are not here to just set us free, but also to set our oppressors free from
their inhumane acts.”
–Martin Luther King
The worst nightmare of a citizen of a democratic country is to feel
oppressed, and here we are in the world’s largest democracy, where a
majority of population feels oppressed and alienated and to make things
worse, we have created a culture over the years in which we refuse to
accept this reality. Even 65 years after independence, we still fail to see
beyond the walls of racism within our own communities. But the incredible
part is that we are not being oppressed by a person or a group but rather
the very system that we are proud to call our own.
200 years ago the Britishers built a political system to oppress us. We
managed to destroy that 65 years ago only to rebuild an even better version of
a political system. Everyone who enters this system has a high tendency
of becoming falsely superior and corrupt and in turn treating the people
outside this system with disdain. Abraham Lincoln once said, “I
walk slowly but never backwards.” In this critical moment in our country’s
history, this system is running backwards. We are witnessing the evolution of
heritage into hate. A political ideology bundled with cherry picked religious arguments
is being systematically inserted into our country’s institutions and our daily lives. Such practices are bound to corrupt the mind and the science. These are critical times but
not the end as the collective consciousness of people outside this
dangerous system has been awaken. The increase in number of protests all
across the country, rise of unorthodox political parties are all warning signs
from the Indian population, who seem to tell us loud and clear that “Enough is enough, we demand freedom from this
corrupt and unfair system”.
It seems that the people inside the system will allow peaceful protest as long as the protest is ineffective and it does not challenge the status quo.
The political system’s moral economy is bankrupt and the benchmarks are
at the lowest in the history. Our leaders have forgotten that leadership is
about taking responsibility and not making excuses or counter blames. But
what the political system fails to realize is that the youths who form most
of India’s population do not have to be smart to ask for change, but will
be foolish no to ask. As Gandhi once said, “First they ignore you, then they laugh
at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
People will no longer stay quiet to comfort your ignorance towards the
major problems in our society and country. Your claims of loving India
while you openly demonstrate your hate towards fellow Indians will not be
tolerated. We are in the midst of a huge political revolution, where people regardless of their differences, are coming together to fight for genuine causes.
The change cannot be stopped, the only thing that our leaders have to
decide is if they want to be a part of it or not. We don’t want a government
with a golden armor but instead a government acting like a sponge that
absorbs our collective intellect and aspirations to make progressive
decisions that create an environment of growth. We don’t want you to
build the nation; we only want you to assist us in building a nation called India.
NOTE: Views expressed are the author’s own. Janta Ka Reporter does not endorse any of the views, facts, incidents mentioned in this piece.
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Very Nice thoughts