Towards a new Swarajya

The freedom we got six decades ago was the starting point for another imprisonment — we, the nation, were under the custody of those who we saw as our own. And if we thought that a change in the colour of the skin really made us free, surely it was disillusionment of the worst sort. Around halfway through our false freedom, came real chains again, with the Emergency fettering us to our poverty and a self-perpetuating and dictatorial power elite. Another fight, another freedom. It took us another two decades before we tasted economic freedom. A higher freedom still awaits us.

But as long as we look outside for it, towards leaders or institutions, it is going to evade us. Man was born free — physically, mentally, emotionally. And more important, spiritually. It is no miracle that our freedom seeking spirit has not yet been smothered, it cannot. It lies dormant, waiting for a new realisation that goes beyond authority and religion into an individuality that’s nourished by the light within, whose brilliance is offered to all. India today seeks its Swadharma, its own becoming. The new freedom struggle, the new Swarajya India seeks is more inclusive. It is political and economic and spiritual, each leading to and nourishing the other. As we celebrate another date, it’s time to remember that it is only if we decide to be free within, that we will be truly free.

It is this freedom that will nourish India’s swadharma. As many wise men and realised souls have stated, India’s role is higher than its unquenched democracy, deeper than its unrealised economic potential, stronger than its uncelebrated military. India’s importance to this planet, they say, is to help its Spiritualisation, its Divinisation. It is here, in these 3,287,263 sq km, we are told, that the next step of natural evolution will come — into matter came life, into life came mind, into mind shall come the spirit. To say that such an endeavour excludes all else like the sweetness of beauty or comforts of wealth would be the weapon of the reductionist; for this enterprise includes all these and more. As we celebrate day after tomorrow, 60 years of unfettering, let us also light a candle for this call of the spirit.