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| Refurbish and recharge the Republic - II | | An oath that can change the lot of poor who survive in Rs 12 a day | |
ABID SHAH
NEW DELHI, JAN 25: Though the Republic Day is being observed today for the 60th time mainly in New Delhi’s central vista and other State Capitals, a group of people are now headed to the banks of river Ravi near Amritsar firmly believing that the seeds of Indian Republic were actually sown by Gandhiji and his followers 20 years before the republic was born by taking an oath on its banks on January 26, 1930 for complete independence or Purna Swaraj.
Led by Professor Jagmohan Singh the founder of Teesra Swadhinta Andolan (TSA) and nephew of the late Sahaheed Bhagat Singh, the group will read aloud Gandhiji’s pledge at the same spot before Ravi on Tuesday – January 26 – morning and rededicate itself to the ideals propounded for the republic by often their martyred ancestors as also by those who faced numerous other hardships in the long drawn struggle for the freedom of India from the British rule.
Days before embarking upon this journey Professor Singh along with other members of the TSA held a meeting of a likeminded group of persons in New Delhi where it was felt that the very things for which Gandhiji thought nothing less but an oath to be appropriate have been denied to the majority of hapless people of the country even over six decades after independence.
Thus, there was a need for a third independence movement since the battle for the freedom fought in 1857 followed by one that culminated in independence in August 1947 meant little change for the impoverished majority of Indians. Professor Singh said that about 35 crore people today had to live in less than Rs 12 a day and another 45 crore made ends meet through as little an income as Rs 20 a day.
“Britishers saw to it that most Indians remain either half fed or just fed by anything to instill among them a sense of inferiority that suited to ensure their slavery. This may be little less bad now but still the fact is that most Indians are not able to eat as nourishing a food as is a case with a select and privileged minority. The recent rise in economic growth is confined to a small privileged class, leaving vast multitude of people in the cold,” said Professor Singh.
He reminded that Gandhiji when he took his oath on Ravi’s banks for Purna Swaraj he cited the average income of Indians which was less than two pence a day and from whom 20 percent of total revenue was taken in the form of land revenue and this was added up by three percent through salt tax. “So the issue raised in Gandhiji’s oath remains far from being redressed given the vast disparity in incomes of majority of Indians and few of their privileged counterparts,” remarked Professor Singh.
If the farmers were under debt during the British rule, now many among them committed suicide; and if artisans’ trade was destroyed before 1947, now domestic goods gave way to imported wares, pointed out the old professor from Ludhiana Agriculture University.
“India in the 18th century was a great manufacturing country and had a thriving agriculture and the products of Indian looms catered to the markets of Asia and Europe but sadly the East India Company followed by British Government discouraged Indian manufacturers to ease the way for British manufacturers. Thus, after independence this should have changed but over reliance on imports from the West and other countries continued as a legacy of the colonial era to the detriment of India and Indians,” observed Professor Singh.
He attributed this to the misplaced policy of Indian ruling elite that towed the West out of centuries old habit without bothering about the rest of Indians. His colleague and TSA Delhi coordinator Gopal Rai called it a result of a slavish mentality that was well intact and in fact honoured at the State cost in the form of monuments like India Gate where the names of all protectors of British Empire since First World War were etched.
Rai reminded that often the so called martyrs for the sake of protecting British Empire whose memory India Gate was meant to commemorate were used by the Empire against Indian freedom fighters too. He said that he had undertaken a fast for several days in August last year for replacing this sign of slavery with a befitting memorial of martyrs of Indian freedom struggle but this had thus far caused only exchange of about half-a-dozen missives among different arms of the Government.
Professor Singh said that the demand for another monument to honour the memory of Indian freedom struggle was not just symbolic but also substantive vis-à-vis India’s assertion as sovereign power running as the will of its people instead of global force that has been causing suicides by farmers and students among other things.
Professor Udai Prakash Arora who teaches History at Jawaharlal Nehru University here remarked that India never had any dearth of talent. This has been proven right through the freedom struggle and also later on. And since this has been because of rich Indian ethos the terms of any deal, exchange or interaction with the West should be on equal terms shorn off the essential inequality of the past.
Together the group that met at Gandhi Peace Foundation on last Friday – January 22 – felt that the present ills afflicting country’s policies could be stemmed out through a vibrant spirit of people’s nationalism.
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