Were your forefathers freedom-fighters?

Nowadays in T.V debates, more often than not, a question springs up about whether someone’s forefathers (or organization with reference to parties for that matter) were part of freedom struggle or not. And here every effort is made to make the other participants of the debate feel guilty and one-self sublime on the basis of whether their forefathers took part in the freedom struggle or they didn’t.

Generally, the years before the 15^th of August 1947 are pictured as the years where only thing that every Indian was doing was: Angrezon Bharat Chodo & Bharat Mata Ki Jai.  

From the eyes of today’s India we would like to proudly paint every Indian’s forefathers with the colour of freedom struggle. And now, everyone is also gregariously willing to have the traces of lathi -charged bruises on the body of their forefathers as the emblem of allegiance to the freedom struggle.

On the contrary to the view of the gloomy and despondent India, the pre-independent- era people were also busy bringing smile on the faces of Indians through singing and dancing. Dada Saheb Phalke, Ashok Kumar,Kanan Devi and Sohrab Modi are some names that tried to shape a different identity of India on the basis of which we take pride in our Indian films having a worldwide reputation for entertainment. I mean to say can we label these stars as sinners because they indulged in activities that gave bliss to senses necessary to lead a life free of depressive milieu?

During the era of so called diametrical darkness, Mr. Srinivasa Ramanujan was busy with his Maths, C.V.Raman  and Satyendranath Bose were busy with their Physics, J.C Bose was busy with his biology, P.C Mahalnobis was busy with his statistics. What I am trying to put forth is that only singing “Vande Matram”  is not the sole yardstick of patriotism to be gung-ho about. Being able to unravel the mysteries of maths and physics is by no means a less service to the nation than yelling chants of Bharat Mata ki Jai and having Lathi bruises.

If we go by the today’s gung-ho patriots who argue vehemently that every one of the pre-independence era needs to have an appellation of freedom fighter and especially that kind of freedom fighter who raised anti-imperialism slogan and went to jails then what kind of people we would have left with and got to calculate the poverty, income and expenditure indices of independent India after the strike of midnight on 15^th August 1947? What kind of people we wanted to run our nuclear plants and steel plants?  Many of you would agree that pursuing a specific branch of study needs its own secluded space and uninterrupted attention and if someone is doing that then it is not less pious a job than crying slogans of freedom.

Because a nation doesn’t only need the mob; it needs the minds also.

Had it not been the case, the party (that claims to be the front runner of freedom struggle) would have made a simpleton rustic, who chanted slogans of Bharat Mata Ki Jai., its prime minister candidate for independent India instead of a well -educated person that it did make.

Incidentally, the country infatuated with freedom -struggler tag forgets the treatment that the independent India meted out to Mr. Batukeshwar Dutt  who was a (friend ) partner of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, and Rajguru in making India independent through their own  revolutionary struggle. Whereas many who were only titular freedom-strugglers got most of the butter from the milk they never churned.

Coming again to the point in discussion, to paint the pre-independent India as a place rife with only poverty, illiteracy, and darkness and to attribute only handful of people responsible for the renaissance of India post-independence are  kinds  of mistakes that people should shun making.

Had everyone been busy reciting only bhajans and chanting slogans, from where we would have got the expertise to understand the science that helps make a nuclear bomb and thus makes a nation capable of saving its sovereignty and making it independent in real terms?

So, India as a nation is not an independent piece of contribution from a certain group of people who had bruise- blanketed body, instead it is a patchwork of all those who wrote poetry, who wrote statistical thesis, who served patients, and who made bridges in pre-independent era. The India of today also owes a lot to film-related people, sports -related people, and business- related people who worked tirelessly in pre-independent India to give India a foundation on which we have today sculpted a formidable existence that is respected world-wide.

By no means, I am trying to belittle the people who got thrashed by imperial rule; they are entitled to all the respect of the country but at the same time do not forgot the contribution of those who didn’t get the physical bruises but were mentally bothered to contribute tremendously to help blossom the notion of India as a nation in palpable terms.

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