Our nation is celebrating 77th Independence Day and it is indeed important for us to treat this occasion as very important, especially looking to the state of affairs around us. Pakistan continues to be in the throes of instability and the developments in Bangladesh have thrown our easterly neighbour into turmoil. Nepal refuses to become politically stable and it continues to dance between India and China, not fully knowing what’s right for it. Tensions in Middle East and never ending Russia – Ukraine saga make it explicitly clear that we are lucky to be in India, the safest, fastest growing and by far the best place to be in ! Minorities are being treated with disdain in our neighbourhood and across many states of the world, but westerly nations and their boss US, are only concerned about the rights of minorities in India! If we look around, we hardly see any dramatic change in the ground reality concerning minorities! Manipur was exception and an ethnic issue as well and not strictly communal! In a nation of 140 crore, stray incidents of caste, community, religion and societal based tensions can never be fully eliminated, but the basic secular fibre of our nation remains protected and intact.
This Independence Day, let’s resolve to be united and stop talking about religion, which is a personal subject matter. but only about Indianness or Bhartiyata! If we are united and our minorities are part of the mainstream, no narrative by any non well wisher of this country will work and India will continue to march along its chosen path – that of peace, prosperity and progress for all Indians!
Happy Independence Day!
Arvind Arya blog 