Proud to be an Indian? Really?

How can one feel proud when scores of children, the future of India, have been dying in a hospital for want of oxygen? 

What a freedom - What a progress is that!?

How can one feel proud when the very principles of our Independence are being trampled by the day, by forces within? Do we still call ourselves a secular, democratic country?

How can one feel proud when each day you wake up to the gruelling statistics of deaths, murder, rape and all things unfair?

How do we feel proud when our spiritual ethos of “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” – all the world is one family – is shaken by narrow constructs of religion and politics - to think of your’s vis-à-vis your friends’ and your neighbours', within and without, from dawn to dusk day after day?

What is it that makes you still proud of your country, at this time?
Proud to be alive, when children die? – No!
There is nothing I feel proud of...sadly.
Just this vain freedom that makes me think a few times before I breathe the air I breathe. Yes, not a Muslim, but I share the unease that Hamid Ansari recently said.

Is this the India of our dreams?
Is it time to give up the India – the idea of India – we cherish in ourselves?
Hope not ~
But, as India prepares to celebrate its 70th year of Independence, the way seems dark and long – more than ever before.

Yet, Independence is Independence. Freedom is the very oxygen of the soul – the very breath of life. Let that be not lost to the fascist forces ruling the country today.

Commemorating a great day from 70 years ago and the struggles of our great men and women to reach there ~

Proud or not, may peace and freedom prevail!