Maa Tujhe Pranaam - Namastey New Delhi- To India with Love – Marking India Independence Day.

Maa Tujhe Pranaam-Namastey New Delhi- To India with Love – Marking India Independence Day.

Thakur Ranjit Singh, Auckland, New Zealand.

Celebrating, commemorating and marking 72nd anniversary of India’s independence on 15 August, 2018.

 

Bharat Mata - Mother India- Mera Bharat Mahaan-My India is great. Maa Tujhe Pranaam- I salute Mother India

“Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially.

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.”..This is extract of the historical speech, “Tryst with Destiny” that Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru gave on the night of 14 August, 1947.

Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of Independent India (left) with father of the nation,Mahatma Gandhi. "Tryst with Destiny" was a speech made  to the Indian Constituent Assembly in The Parliament, on the eve of India's Independence, towards midnight on 14 August 1947.

Today I take this opportunity to congratulate my Grand Motherland, India on the occasion of its 72^th Independence Day celebration on 15 August, 2018.

I submit this on behalf of Indian Diaspora in Auckland to mark this auspicious day. I am third generation Indo Fijian, displaced from India when my grandfather was torn and tricked from his roots by British to slave in Fiji to fill their coffers. 

When Fiji’s deposed Prime Minister Qarase visited India when he was Fiji's ethno-nationalist Prime Minister, he failed to learn anything from Indian hospitality.  The uncrowned father of Indian movies, Raj Kapoor immortalized this aspect of Indian culture in his film, “Jis Desh Mein Ganga Baheti Hai” (the land where Ganges flows) with this song….”Mehmaan jo hamara hota hai, woh jaan se pyara hota hai, …i... hum us desh ke waasi hai jis desh mein Ganga baheti hai...” His song translates to say that we value our visitors more than our life; we do not lust or greed for much as we manage in little that we have... We hail from the land where the Ganges flows.

And from that land if Qarase had learnt that language of Indian love of all inclusiveness, he may still be ruling Fiji today. But he failed to do so at his peril. There was one very important lesson for Fiji’s Prime Minister and his group from the Indian visit. India is the only country on the planet where no Fijian Prime Minister would be able to sell the 'Indigenous Race Card' to justify Fijian nationalism, racism, and exclusive political control of the country, where Indians were treated as trash.

Fiji’s nationalist leaders and others around the world should gain immensely from Indian history and way of life. Those Anglo Saxons, Europeans and other ignorant people who still regard India as a land of snake charmers and rope tricks need to see Akshay Kumar’s Bollywood movie Namaste London. (Greetings to London) They need to get a translation of the episode where the hero shuts up the great grandson of an English East Indian Company employee who was running down India and its people.

By clasping his hands, Akshay says that when we Indians greet each other in the tradition of 5,000 year old civilization, we fold our hands close to heart in Namaste (greetings) because we believe that God resides in the heart of every human being.

We come from a nation where we allow a lady of Catholic Religion (Sonia Gandhi) to step aside for a Sikh (Manmohan Singh) to be sworn as the Prime Minister by a Muslim President (Abdul Kalam) to govern a nation with over 80% Hindus (India)

It may also interest you to know that many versions of English language come from Sanskrit. For example, matr becomes mother, bhrata becomes brother, jamity become geometry and trikonmiti becomes trigonometry.

English is spoken and read more widely in India than in England. India has 5,600 newspapers, 35,000 magazines and 21 major languages with combined readership of 120 million, many more than in England. We have reached the moon and back but yet many Anglo Saxons still feel that India has reached only as far as gourd flute of snake charmers. We have third largest pool in the world of doctors, scientists and engineers. All these are of the details of our intellectual might, now look at our physical might.

May be the English grandfather did not tell that we have the third largest army in the world, and even then I clasp my hand in humility because we do not believe that we are above or beneath any individual. Well said Puttar

 

India has third largest army in the world, yet they have never attacked any nation, and retains humility with clasped hands in form of Namastey.

So next time you are confronted by an ethnocentric individual who runs down Bharat Mata (Mother India) then you repeat the above to shut him. Some good movies to enlighten you and your children on pride of India are Manoj Kumar’s Upkar and Purab aur Paschim.

Manoj Kumar - Bharat - immortalised an ideal deshbhakt  (patriot) that he wished other Indians to be. Hope his lessons are learnt by all Indians. He shut critics of India with "..jab zero diya mere Bharat ne...." (when my India gave zero and decimal to the world..). Indian virtues and culture emulated in Bollywood are very effective, but appear to be confined to celluloid screens only.

Unfortunately for many Indians abroad, the Indian pride is confined to Bollywood movies, where the real heroes only survive on screens, very rare in reality. It appears honest and conscientious policemen like Chulbul Pandey and Bajirao Singham we only see on movie screens,

But how true are those dreams and future that Jawaharlal Nehru uttered some 70 years ago to the date:

“That future is not one of ease or resting but of incessant striving so that we may fulfil the pledges we have so often taken and the one we shall take today. The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity.”

 

The historical pride of India: we now seek similar leadership from current leaders. But corruption, scandals and self-interest of people in power have tarnished the history carved out by our freedom fighters.

The challenge is now on Indian Diaspora to emulate the dreams of our freedom fighters who brought independence to India- the independence and prosperity that over seven decades have failed to reach a vast population of India. Media freedom and freedom of speech have been the last bastion of democracy. And I hope India’s national motto of Satyamev Jayate, of telling the truth remains bold. 

Happy Independence Day to India. In 2012, I had told Indians to bow their heads in prayers and seek for a miracle to rescue Bharat Mata- Mother India from the evils that has engulfed this once proud nation. Thankfully, those prayers have been answered. 

That miracle is in form of NARENDRA MODI – it is now left for Indians to embrace the Sher of Gujarat-Lion of Gujarat. That appears to be the long awaited miracle we have been waiting for.

 

NARENDRA MODI- The Lion of Gujarat - answer to our prayers for somebody to wrest back honour, dignity and respectability that Indian once commanded.

JAI HIND-HAIL INDIA

E-mail: thakuji@xtra.co.nz

[About the Author: Thakur Ranjit Singh is a third generation Indo Fijian. He was born in Fiji Islands. His indentured grandfather, Bansi was a Thakur from Karauli in Rajasthan, India. He is a media commentator, a journalist and runs his blog site FIJI PUNDIT]