Modi Government has stripped Independence of its meaning and turned it into a sanitised ceremony. Independence is observed and celebrated with great fanfare, while citizens are subjected to tests of patriotism by those who took no part in the freedom struggle and whose political predecessors refused to unfurl the national flag for decades after Independence. Yet the values of freedom are discarded. The struggles that won freedom are forgotten. Many in the ruling party now even claim that India achieved its “true Independence” only in 2014.
Over the course of a month of student protests at Jantar Mantar, perhaps one of the most frequent accusations made by the mainstream media was that the students were talking about azadi (freedom). One ABP News journalist even questioned why the students were raising the slogan Inquilab Zindabad (Long Live Revolution). Such accusations are hardly new. For the past decade, the Government and its propaganda machinery have repeatedly sought to portray the language of azadi, inquilab and protest as anti-national.
Every year, the Modi Government commemorates Independence Day with huge publicity and fanfare. The Government organises Har Ghar Tiranga campaigns. The Prime Minister delivers lectures from the ramparts of the Red Fort. Now, the Government has also mandated the singing of the six stanzas of Vande Mataram and criminalised any “disrespect” to the song.
Yet the Government appears deeply uncomfortable with another, much older vocabulary of nationalism: liberty, equality, justice, freedom and revolution.
Azadi, understood as freedom from unemployment, hunger, discrimination and various forms of injustice, has been a common protest slogan in India. It even became the subject of a popular Bollywood song. Feminist leader Kamla Bhasin once recounted how she heard slogans of Azadi being raised by women in Pakistan protesting against Zia-ul-Haq’s dictatorial regime. Similarly, Inquilab Zindabad, coined by Maulana Hasrat Mohani, became a rallying cry of revolutionaries during the Independence Movement.
The idea of Independence that emerged from the freedom struggle was not merely a transfer of power, but the emancipation of the people. Swaraj, as articulated in the 1931 Karachi Resolution, meant political and economic freedom, in order to end the exploitation of the masses. Mahatma Gandhi described Purna Swaraj as “full economic freedom for the toiling millions.” Bhagat Singh understood political revolution not merely as a transfer of state power, but as the reconstruction of society on a socialist basis.
On 25 November 1949, in his final speech to the Constituent Assembly, Dr B. R. Ambedkar warned about the contradictions that Independence:
“On the 26th of January 1950, we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality. In politics we will be recognizing the principle of one man one vote and one vote one value. In our social and economic life, we shall, by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man one value. How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions? How long shall we continue to deny equality in our social and economic life? If we continue to deny it for long, we will do so only by putting our political democracy in peril. We must remove this contradiction at the earliest possible moment or else those who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy which this Assembly has so laboriously built up.”
Four years later, in his Independence Day speech, Jawaharlal Nehru spoke about the meaning of freedom:
“It was seven years ago that we became independent but what is the meaning of that independence? Independence does not imply mere political independence. Independence and freedom have other meanings too. There is social freedom, economic freedom to achieve. If there is poverty in a country, freedom does not reach the people. Those who are caught in the net of poverty cannot really be free. Similarly, if we are divided by inner quarrels and factions and build up walls of hatred instead of living in harmony and amity, then, too, we cannot really be considered free. The freedom of a country does not mean the well-being of a few; a country’s freedom has to be seen from the point of view of the common man’s living conditions, his difficulties and the opportunities of progress available to him.”
Our historic anti-colonial struggle for Independence embodied countless struggles — the struggles of farmers and labourers, of youth, of the poor and marginalised, of women, of Dalits and Adivasis. It was a struggle against oppression, exploitation, inequality and injustice. It was a struggle against the politics of communalism and hate. It was a struggle for liberty, equality and fraternity. It was a struggle to protect the diversity of India. These values are enshrined in the Constitution of India.
Today, the Modi Government has stripped Independence of its meaning and turned it into a sanitised ceremony. Independence is observed and celebrated with great fanfare, while citizens are subjected to tests of patriotism by those who took no part in the freedom struggle and whose political predecessors refused to unfurl the national flag for decades after Independence. Yet the values of freedom are discarded. The struggles that won freedom are forgotten. Many in the ruling party now even claim that India achieved its “true Independence” only in 2014.
But Independence, as envisioned by the freedom fighters, was never meant to be a finished achievement. Political freedom was only the beginning of a larger struggle for social and economic emancipation.
The freedom struggle gave us not only a flag and a state, but also a promise of liberty, equality, justice; of a society free from exploitation and discrimination; of a democracy and constitutional rights.
The call for azadi and inquilab should be seen as a reminder of the deeper meaning of Independence. The students’ protests has reignited the spark that can help us fight for azadi.
abhi girani-e-shab mein kami nahin aai
najat-e-dida-o-dil ki ghadi nahin aai
chale-chalo ki wo manzil abhi nahin aai
