Tryst with destiny ..

 

Long year ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge ... At the stroke of midnight hour, while 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.

Despite the sufferings and uncertainty about the future of India then, the eyes were filled with emotion, when the masses heard this speech 6 decades ago. They heard the national anthem for the first time. Few recognized it. They realized a good fortune in having witnessed the birth of a new nation. In what became the most important speech delivered in modern India Nehru went on to say, "The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunities to great triumph and achievements.that await us". He reminded the people that the task ahead included "the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity".

6 decades since then, as I stand in the nation which still does not have educated masses and adequate healthcare and has double digit food inflation, rising prices of commodities, scams one after another, my heart is saddened and mind is troubled. The 3G, CWG, changing education structure of centrally funded autonomous education institutes, India Against Corruption movement, black money laundering and the recently mishandled coal blocks allocation.

We have made progress in certain aspect but the I think may be it's not enough. After the economic liberalization India, China and Japan emerged as the potential growth economies. While Japan is 3 generations ahead , China capitalized on it's resources and strengths,  India somewhere lagged behind.

I am not sure what the future is in store us but we have reasons enough to get alarmed, we have reasons enough to wake up. I think somewhere we fell short in fulfilling the tryst that we made with destiny long ago.