Why will I not celebrate Independence Day this year
15th Aug, one of my favorite dates in the year, but not for the reason it should be. Mostly I am happy as I can get a day off in the middle of the week. Watching people celebrate it with tri-color face paint, small gatherings in various society’s and the latest on the block, tri-color accessories just makes me wonder the irony and shallowness of this holiday. India might have been free from the clutches of the Brits 72 years ago. But many, an awful lot of women are still captive and slaves in their own home and in their own mind. They might have been given the so-called independence but have been denied the freedom to use it completely.
Ever since I was a little girl, I have been fond of former PM Jawahar Lal Nehru famous speech Tryst with Destiny. In an ironical way, I call it my tryst with Freedom.
“At the stroke of midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom,” he famously said. And here I am 25 years later still waiting every night at midnight hour for my clock to strike 12 and be free. I sleep every night in the hope of waking up to a new “free” India.
Now what is this free India, another one of those writer, feminist weirdo is talking about, you must wonder? The answer is very simple. The new India or the free India this feminist wants to wake up in is where there is:
·Freedom of Thought: The freedom to think and make plans for myself and a path to execute all the plans I made.
·Freedom from Baggage: The freedom to be able to do something for myself, to make myself happy first without hurting the sentiments of my primary duties of making other’s happy first because obviously, I am a woman, and that’s what ladies are supposed to do.
·Freedom to make choices: The freedom to be able to make the tough choices in life all by me without being labeled with a bad tag for it.
·Freedom of Opinion: The freedom to have my own take on things, the freedom to express happiness, remorse, anger or happiness in things I like and dislike. Instead of always repeating what I have learnt from others. The freedom to look at my world in my own little way.
· Freedom of Responsibility: The freedom to take responsibility for my own actions.
· Freedom to make Mistakes: The freedom to walk up to someone and say- Hey you are right I made a mistake, but at least I am going live my mistake not someone else’s.
·Freedom to be Me: Me just me, my own flavor of me and no garnishes of anyone else.
It is ironical how the whole country about 100 billion people all fail to see the paradox of Independence Day. How can you call yourself a free country when all your women are still chained? They are still living in shackles, in the fear of being labeled if they think for themselves. How can you call yourself a free country when your women can’t even be something they want to be or say something they have always wanted to say? How can India as a country celebrate Independence Day when the women (who are also referred to as goddesses) still feel like an oppressed, objectified second class citizen who has to “dress as per the occasion, and make unnecessary sacrifices.”
This year I have decided to wake up and shun this hoax of celebrating Independence Day, by raising a flag or wearing my favorite set of Orange, White, Green Bangles. This year I will not post anything that I don’t believe in on my social media. This year I will resent what I feel is not right. I will raise a voice for myself and many many many others like me.
Ladies wake up, let's stir a revolution, a peaceful, non-violent but a non-silent one like our Father of the Nation did 72 years ago. Let us not sit quietly. Let us demand for our own freedom. One day when I feel I can be myself in this country, I can breathe in peace again. That is when I will join the 15th Aug celebrations and call India a free country.
#Womendemandfreedom
