Apathy Must End

I was 6 years old when I won first prize in elocution for reciting Pandit Nehru’s “A Tryst With Destiny” speech. I was 10 years old when I was taught the ideals on which India was built. As I grew older, I learnt about our struggle for freedom, learnt the Preamble to the Constitution by rote, and more importantly, understood what these ideals stood for. Today, 60 years after Nehru declared that India would end poverty and inequality of opportunity, the promises remain unfulfilled. The prosperous, democratic and progressive nation, which will ensure justice and fullness of life to every man and woman, remain elusive.


The politicians of the era that won us our freedom took great pride in dedicating themselves to binding themselves to the service of India. The politicians of today throw furniture at each other and invent new means of cheating the people. Politics today is seen as a dirty business, a perfect vocation for the biggest swindler in town. Corruption is widely prevalent, to the extent that it is not looked down upon anymore; just a reality of life. The speaker of the outgoing Lok Sabha, Somnath Chatterjee, declared in a fit of anger that MP’s do not deserve a single paisa. Though he later retracted his statement, it is no doubt an assertion shared by many in the country. India today is still home to the world’s poorest, 27% of the world’s hungriest are Indians. These remain untold in the stories of Rising India that we take so much pride on.


Images of Godhra still remain in my mind. Though there have been many communal riots in the country prior to independence, Godhra is more horrific to me at a personal level as my family lived(and still does)in Ahmedabad at the time. Religious intolerance is on the rise. Who can forget the destruction of churches in Karnataka and Orissa or the impunity with which fundamentalists impose their rabid ideology on others? Gender equality remains a pipe dream, and moral policing is on the rise. Caste clashes still exist as do evils like dowry. The progressive nation Nehru dreamed of remains regressive in form and outlook.


However, it is time we stopped moaning and start acting. Years of neglect and indifference have yielded the India we see today. Yes, there is progress, but of what good is this if we fail to free or poor from the shackles of poverty and hunger? We must build a new culture, akin to the one that was prevalent when we gained independence under the stewardship of Gandhiji. We can start by realizing that every individual holds a stake in what happens around us; the culture of indifference and apathy must end.