On Indian Independence Day

Resilience. 
Community above Self. 
Unity in Diversity. 
Dignity, Respect, and Equality for all. 
Power of Peaceful and Non-Violent Dissent.

Values I consider deeply ingrained into my identity. Values I remember on August 15, the day India became free 73 years ago from the rule of British colonizers. My childhood heroes and heroines didn’t wear capes. They wore khadi dhotis and sarees. These stories featured the brave and noble “aam aadmi and aurat” — the likes of:

Gandhi, who showed the world the power of “satyagraha”, or non-violent protests for political and social progress; Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, one of the writers of India’s constitution, and primary campaigners against discrimination towards “untouchables”; Sarojini Naidu, also known as the “Nightingale of India” and first Indian woman to be appointed an Indian state governor, lent her powerful words and voice for women’s emancipation; and Rabindranath Tagore, Nobel Laureate writer, poet and artist who penned the Indian National anthem “Jana Gana Mana”, inspiring a new standard of values, higher ideals, and morality in how we treat our communities.

All inspiring responsibility to work not just for myself, but for future generations, and for communities around me.

I cannot deny the many privileges I enjoy today, founded on the many years of self-sacrifice, violence, toil, and discrimination that my parents, their parents, and preceding generations endured so today I could have the privilege of freedom to access education, invest in my health, to wear my culture and 30,000 year old heritage with pride, and travel the world seeking new experiences, friends and dreams.

Thinking back to Nehru’s famous speech on the “Tryst with Destiny” (my favorite excerpt attached below), I’m just one of many Indians asking the question, “are we truly free”?

Our own internal shackles as a country and community still persist — corruption, religious divides and intolerance, patriarchy, women’s safety and equality, basic sanitation and pollution, and better access to education just to name a few.

We’re fighting a different fight today. This is especially true for us privileged ones — it’s the invisible fight with our own mental narrative, the “Aisa hi chalega” and “Kuch nahi kar sakte”. But the vision of India as written in the Preamble of our constitution remain unchanged, those of Justice, Equality, Liberty and Fraternity. I can’t help but think: what will our grandchildren look back and think of what we are doing today to further progress to that vision? Or will that vision, that “quest for India to discover herself again” remain an unattainable myth?

At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.

It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of India and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity.
At the dawn of history India started on her unending quest, and trackless centuries are filled with her striving and the grandeur of her success and her failures. Through good and ill fortune alike she has never lost sight of that quest or forgotten the ideals which gave her strength. We end today a period of ill fortune and India discovers herself again.

The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us.

Are we brave enough and wise enough to grasp this opportunity and accept the challenge of the future?

Excerpt of Nehru’s speech, “Tryst with Destiny” , August 15, 1947