The festival worth celebrating most, our country’s Independence Day, has just gone past.
Most of us were born after India gained independence, so we have not experienced what it is like to live under the control of a foreign power. When we go around a totally free, democratic, secular and unrestricted gigantic nation, we perhaps cannot visualize what it must have been to be asked to crawl on certain roads because the Britishers felt offended by the ‘natives’, or what it was to see signboards reading “Dogs and Indians now Allowed” in our own nation.
The one very important festival that binds us together whether we are Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Sikh, atheist or Banjara is our Independence Day. Let us not only celebrate this great day with all enthusiasm and from the heart, but let the spirit of Independence continue in our hearts many days after 15th August is over. Let us cherish and protect this freedom from restrictive practices, internal and external threats, and even from our own narrow-minded thoughts if they occur.
Happy Independence!
