The Nation and its People: An observation

India, the largest democracy in the world is celebrating its 68^th independence anniversary this 15^th of August. For the last 68 years since the British left the country and handed over the responsibility to run this immense nation to us, every year we celebrate the honour and satisfaction of this immense responsibility.

 For the last 68 years, this nation has seen everything, from genocides to secularism, from depression and poverty to massive industrial development and prime global standing. India’s journey has been through many downs and few but significant ups, and for a nation with 1.21 billion multi-lingual multi-cultural democracy conscious people it’s not that easy to move upstream as it is for other nations. Nevertheless, such diversity, such chaos, yet such intensity, such flair is what makes India such a blatant force in the modern world.

India is one of the oldest civilizations of the world, maybe one among the very first few. This land has been epicentre of language and spirituality. For hundreds of years and on this nation has produced great people who made and are still making great contributions all over the world, may it be in the field of medicine, aeronautics, business or poetry. Thus, we Indians cannot be stereotyped and limited to a few fields.

Although Indians are multi-talented and omnipresent, it is very difficult to categorize the people of India to a specific characteristic. Grumpy as a German, bold as an Italian or romantic as a French, we Indians can be one of everything or simply outstanding. However, there are certain characteristics that we Indians possess and which are quite unique, for example, most of us are firm believers of “Hippocratic Patriotism”, i.e., we tend to express our love towards our nation in more symbolic ways rather than really applying ourselves in the betterment of our nation. We may feel disgraced and our sentiments gets deeply hurt when we find a random politician engaged in an illicit deal or when an author pens his honest views which are hard to digest but otherwise true, but we never for a bit feel disgraced or embarrassed to engage into bribery, or nepotism, or ignoring crime as somebody else is being getting hassled as he or she is not my family or friend.

Another unique characteristic of ours is, we firmly believe in “The West Standards”. We admire the west so intensely that anything from education policies to lifestyle to toilet etiquettes, we try to do it the western way, and if certain unfortunate Indians doesn’t quite adapt to that then they remain the desi Indian, who is almost a foreigner among the modern Indians.

The people of this nation also have the tendency to be more religiously driven rather than nationally driven. This allows the anti-social elements in the country trigger wide range of improper activities throughout the country in the name of religion and get away with it. We should realize that the country is far above any religion and it belongs to everyone breathing on her soil, so we must have enough pride to work towards building the nation, not breaking it.

In spite of all these, there are many Indians who are trying day in and day out to for the sustainability of this great nation. From the ruthless cold barrens of Siachen to the nation’s heart in Delhi, there are people who are keeping this country alive and helping it prosper.

 There will be evil, but even the intention of good is powerful enough to conquer it. We should remember that opposing what is wrong is the greatest deed one can ever do and being blind to injustice and crime is a greater evil than the crime itself. This land belongs to us and our people, and the more united we remain the greater will be our rise.