As India approached its 75th Independence Day this year, infectious patriotic fervour ran rampant through its many states, compelling even its most heedless citizens, who wouldn’t even vote in elections, to put their most patriotic selves (read Display Pictures) forward. Balconies and chaurahas with not a single one daring to be left behind, adorned with fluttering tirangas stood in proud welcoming obeisance as the day dawned upon them. For the first time in its independent history, Indians, young and old had been successfully convinced that their patriotism as an emotion is best worn on their sleeves and if kept hidden behind acts like paying regular taxes, protecting the environment and the like, then it is as good as nonexistent. Hence, they went all out, measuring and comparing to prove that their sense of loyalty to their motherland did indeed outweigh that of their neighbours and office colleagues, dare they be questioned.
By initiating the Har Ghar Tiranga campaign, and appealing to the sentiments of the nation at large the Prime Minister of India ensured that Indians would effectively hum his tune without for once enquiring where exactly the 1.8 million homeless Indians were to hoist their flags. In fact, how does anybody ask anything of a Prime Minister who hasn’t built the courage to present himself before a press conference even once in his two terms of service?
As expected though, not just celebrations, but even emotions across the country swelled to mimic those of their proud 56-inch chested Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Much like him, these emotions remained limited to just hoisting flags and threatening those who had not, without any real care for putting the ideals behind the struggle for independence to good practice. Even as some Indians chose not to be swayed by the prachaar, another very distinct emotion guaranteed that they too would comply: fear. In Haryana for instance, ration card holders who refused to buy a ₹20 tiranga were being denied their food supplies. In the many videos that surfaced on the internet, poor labourers who did not even have decent accommodations to hoist those flags were seen lamenting the pseudo nationalism forced upon them by those who were singing praises of the man who had made them realise their national duty.
Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel of Gujarat, who held the Tiranga Yatra, said they would all come forward under the guidance of the honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi to do all they could for the country with patriotism. “Let us all join hands to enhance the aan, baan and shaan (prestige) Narendrabhai has created in the country and across the world,” he added. One could only assume that Chief Minister Patel meant the enhancement of the aan, baan and shaan of only the Adani and Ambani empires that hail from his state and not so much the Indian democracy. For if anything, then India, as an independent republic has in the past eight years seen only a steady decline in all parameters of development from its otherwise influential position under previous Prime Ministers. For instance, 75 million of the population are now plunged into poverty, the urban unemployment rate in Mr Modi’s tenure has risen to 9.22%, the highest in 45 years and our inflation is at a nine-year high of 15.08%.
That aside, the reigning BJP party’s sectarian saffron vs others politics has only further damaged the democratic fabric of the nation that was once delicately woven with threads of sacrifice, peace, tolerance and harmony. The country has reported 857 cases of communal violence in the year 2020 alone, as per the reports of NCRB data. From the year 2016 to 2020, from a total of 2.76 lakhs riots, 3,400 were religious or communal. In 2012, as the Nirbhaya rape case in the nation’s capital, rocked the conscience of the country, everybody looked optimistically at BJP’s prime ministerial candidate as he reminded them to keep Nirbhaya in mind as they voted, for it would be he alone who would be changing the status quo of women’s safety in India. Nearly a decade later, however, India now ranks on the Thomson Reuters Foundation as the most unsafe country for women, ahead of even Afghanistan and Syria. Nearly 31,000 crimes were committed against women (National Commission for Women), the highest since 2014 and 1,100 women were raped in the capital alone in the first six months of this year. How the Indian woman’s rakhi sporting Prime Minister changes the grim statistics is yet to be seen.
The last eight years have even put India’s identity as the world’s largest democracy in jeopardy. India’s ranking in the World Democracy Index amongst 167 countries has slipped from a decent 21st in 2014 to a shameful 53rd and has also been categorised for the first time as a ‘flawed democracy’. The everyday gagging of journalists and judiciaries, boycotting of cinema houses, cancellations of comedy shows, arrests and ostracisation of artists have all come together to haunt our consciences as we watch our Freedom of Speech (Press Freedom Index) fall to 150 among 180 countries. On the bright side, however, staunch BJP aide Gautham Adani has overtaken Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates to become the fourth-richest person on the planet in July this year.
The shackles of casteism that India vowed to free itself from soon after its independence, still glaringly linger, stronger than before, daring its onlookers to try and expel them. Only days before Independence Day this year, with preparations to celebrate 75 years of liberation in full swing, a nine-year-old Dalit boy succumbed to his injuries and died after being mercilessly thrashed by his upper caste teacher in Rajasthan, only for drinking water from a pot not meant for him. But, it was Gujarat yet again, that chose another, most unique way to commemorate the Diamond Jubilee of Indian Independence. It outdid other states by choosing to revoke, on Independence Day, the life sentences of eleven men accused of the gangrape of a visibly pregnant, nineteen-year-old Bilkis Bano and the murder of fourteen members of her family including her three-year-old daughter before her eyes, during the Gujarat riots of 2002. The men, as Gujarat BJP MLA CK Raulji has called, “…are Brahmins, Men of Good Sanskaar” and hence worthy of the garlanded welcome they received upon their release. While the Nirbhaya rape case of 2012 had brought the nation’s functioning to a standstill because Mr Modi sat in the opposition and goaded the nation, these two mind-numbing incidents and many lynchings before it has garnered not the batting of an eyelid from its masses because Modi sits quietly in the ruling seat and glares the nation into silence.
Yes, India did gain independence on the 15th of August in 1947, but only from being the white man’s burden. Today, 75 years later, as a country that is battling chauvinism, casteism, sexism, majoritarianism, a politics of dread and fear, a government that buys and sells its officials like cattle trade but lynches those whose livelihood depends on the trade of cattle, a prime minister who fears the questions of his people, a population that has extinguished the passion of protecting the constitution, ethos and plurality of this country, media houses lipsyncing the words of politicians, army men using movies for validity and movies using the army for their Friday releases and a powerless hand in glove opposition, we remain a nation more enslaved than ever before in our history.
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Zainab Aliyah is a Staff Writer at The Cognate.
