Revisiting Nationalism : A critical new rise to 74th Independence day

 

Initially, sincere apologies to all those nationalist readers who jumped into this article thinking nationalism to be something as narrow as is discussed in today's India, as this is not going to be any case.
Nationalism according to me is nothing but “feeling of belonging and doing every bit for the nation( more importantly its people)”.
Hence, through my lens its not about India but Indians.
 
This independence day, I tried to revisit the memoirs and challenges of hard carved out Independent India.
Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru's speech "Tryst with destiny" delivered on 15th August,1947 still holds relevance and significance as India in 2020 also is battling along the lines of plethora of challenges which it faced at the stroke of independence.
 
According to World Economic Forum' there are 7 key challenges which India faces currently , I will try to dive into those one by one in this article.
 

• Education and Skills  
 
India's primary education system reflects a very sorry state of affairs when looked upon with reference to the public sector. Conversely, Private primary educational institutions although holds good performance but can be a dream for millions of students. Here, I may not equip you all with hard facts by any authority reflecting all this but simply the challenge before the sector at ground zero.
On one hand where public funded primary schools lack in infrastructure, good teachers, governance inevitably making these institutions only as food serving outlet in form of mid day meal scheme to millions of poor students while on the other hand private schools are more focussed on only infrastucture but gets poor on quality of education inevitably making themselves financially unreachable to millions.
 
Similarly, India's higher educational system possess the acute challenge of 20% less percentage points of gross enrollment ratio than China, Brazil or many other middle income countries. Educational attainment in India is not directly correlated to employment which was reflected in a study done by authorities which showed that 46% of university graduates in 2013 did end up with no emplyment, hence India although boasts of huge youth bulge but unfortunately a chunk of this populace is adding to pool of unemployed youths.
 
However, The Central government has come up recently with the New Education Policy'20 but hardly it received a healthy public debate.
Therefore, lets critically evaluate this policy which still has long way to be implemented.  

• Urbanization
 
This process is the biggest mirage of development as it has done more negative to the lives of millions of Indians which was truly and effectively reflected recently in the form of "Exodus of migrants" from metropolitan urban centres to their native villages. Numerous governments have paid least attention to this issue but has to be dealt with strongly because the figure of 90% employment in informal sector in these places is itself horrifying. Urbanization needs to be replaced with balanced rural-urban development.
 
This independence day, lets critically examine the effects of urbanization and remember Gandhi ji who always stressed for the empowerment of Panchayati-Raj institutions to better off villages of our nation.
As real India still lives in villages but not metros.  

 • Gender Equality

This is an issue which needs utmost urgent attention; not only from the political squares but the society in large. This unequal society needs to more equal by educating girls primarily of their rights and injustices done to them right from the birth, then equality can be fought for. Again I won't give much stress on the facts and figures (which certainly all of us can google) but the basic issue with girls/women has to be addressed at the household level where she is allowed to wear what she wants; she is free to ask for some hot water openly to relive herself from menstrual pain; she can sit/sleep in the posture she wants and much more. These are some small but important methods to start with rather just demanding capital punishment for rapists in a media haste.
More importantly its not about women/girls only but a large proportion of Indian trans people or those belonging to LGBTQ community who were sadistically numbered  officially only in 2014 ( around 5 lacs). These people still need to be provided with more opportunities especially in the fast growing dynamic private sector calibrated with the acceptance of theirs in our minds.
 
This independence day, lets seek to envision our boys/men to respect every gender’s integrity.
 
 

 
Look, the challenges are many but left uncovered by the media or may be its us who do not pay attention as we do still to a "Ram Mandir issue" or "Boycott China".
The hard menace of sanitation where atleast 4-5 sanitation workers die daily has to be addressed, The regular flood mismanagement in several parts of India needs to managed with seriousness.
 
India along with the world is going through a devastating and shattering pandemic of Covid-19 but the major apathy is with us who are still busy in deciding who's real Indian and who's not ( Hindus and Muslims) ' won't be wrong to write Respectively in that bracket.
 May be , this Independence day we shall seek answers from our government that what did they do to protect us from dying to Covid-19 during the world's strictest lockdown.  
 
 
 "In a democracy, People should not be afraid of governments but governments should be afraid of people". — Alan Moore
 
With these words of Alan Moore,  
I request all of us to become true nationalist and start to do our bit to remain a healthy democracy not only in political sphere but social and economical too.
 
Happy Independence Day  🇮🇳