SAHIL SINGH
While much has happened and written about making my nation great. But, often we analyse variety of crisis that makes me and you to feel insecure. As I sit down to write, I hear political noise every where. The ruling party Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP), brought to power nearly two years ago with love and votes, is now in the midst of battling several controversies. The Congress is blaming BJP, while the BJP is reminding the Congress about its past sins. The image I want to present now is a snapshoot of Indian news right now, but this could be the situation at any given point in time.
My dream and the goal of this article, is not just making India rich. It is about making India great. Being both developed and rich country, is part of being a great nation. However, it isn’t enough. To be great, one has to know that respect and coolness, doesn’t come from money alone. Neither does it come from just military might or any kind of power. Now, true coolness and respect come from another aspect of country-and that is providing fair treatment and equality. A society can be called equal when it doesn’t matter who you are and where you come from.
No country is perfect in terms of equality. In human society, full equality is impossible. Communist -style experiment have failed, mainly because any communist regime often leads to an autocratic leadership, which controls everyone and ironically creates the biggest sense of inequality. No, equality doesn’t mean everyone should have the same thing. However, it means everyone should get their due, based on hard work, merit and creativity. It also means justice should be provided to all, and your identity doesn’t determine your rights. Note that the aim here is equality not appeasement.
So, how do you check if a nation cares about equality? Quite simple, it can be tested in terms of how it treats its minorities. In a democracy, theoretically, the majority can decide everything. It can even make minorities suffer, using so- called completely democratic process. However, this is where the checks and balances of equality come in.
During my work over this article, I found our country has mainly three kinds of minorities-religious (non-Hindus), sexual (gays and lesbians) and gender ( women). While non-Hindus and homosexuals are in minority due to sheer numbers, while women are considered a minority, given our historically male-dominated society.
How we treat these minorities will determine how great our nation becomes. We still have Section 377, a legacy of Victorian age, which criminalises gay sex, a law so regressive, only a few orthodox religious states around the world have it today. We still don’t treat our women right, and often deny their rights without even realising it. And every now and then, the fear of communalism and actual violence against religious minorities makes them feel unsafe. Equality is awesome. Let’s keep working towards it.
If I keep on raising the issues a book can be written over it. So due to shortage of words, I would like to present a simple chart, on which if my countrymen would go on and work over these issues, one day my nation could be called ‘INDIA IS GREAT’.
Dear readers, in the United States, there is a term called ‘great American dreams’. According to American author and historian James Truslow Adams, the great American dream is that life should be better and fuller for everyone with opportunity for each according to the ability or achievement. Now, we don’t have an equivalent great Indian dreams and I don’t think we can copy paste the American dreams. I do think what the great Indian dream should be that every citizen should work hard, prosper and succeed through innovation and hard work. According to the reports made by UN, last year, we have largest proportion of youth. Like our PM says, “India is its youth, if the youth are awesome, nothing can stop a nation from being awesome.” So there is also a need to empower youth by improving their status in every field by providing them employment opportunities, in all domains.
I hope you enjoyed this article and feel inspired to create solution for India yourself. I thank you and even salute you for reading this. People like you are my hope for this nation. Let us join hands, and together let us take this great nation to where it truly deserves to be. Let us work now, so our grandkids can say one day, I’ll tell you something about my grandparents’ generation. They were just great.
