BHARAT MAA TUJHE PRANAAM: A SALUTE TO INDIA ON ITS INDEPENDENCE DAY
Thakur Ranjit Singh, Auckland, New Zealand.
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BHARAT MAA
TUJHE PRANAAM-AZAADI DIVAS 2020
India Independence day this year holds especially dear to Indian History, as India now has a leader who has started untangling the shackles India was since 1947 under very wanting and undeserving leadership under Congress.
Events in Kashmir and elsewhere,
changing laws to grant rights to persecuted Indians, changing laws to make all
Indians to come under one law, and the construction of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya,
among others, make 2022 historically a very significant BHARAT INDEPENDENCE
DAY.
As we are celebrating Janam Astmi now, and prayed to Lord Krishna to ..pura
kar de aaj vachan who Gita mein jo tuu ne diya… fulfill the promise you
gave in Bhagavat Gita to come back to save BHARAT when goodness and compassion
are under threat.
It appears you have listened…..and sent
us SHRI NARENDRA MODI JI.
Hope Indians can recognize Modi Ji and
support him in a quest to make BHARAT MATA (Mother India) proud and great - once
again.
Please read on……
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A salute to India on its Anniversary of independence -15 August.
On the night of 14 August, 1947, the first Prime Minister of Independent India, Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru, gave the historical, Tryst with Destiny speech”
“Long years ago we made a tryst (date) with destiny (fate), 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. ”
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| Jai Hind-Hail India |
I dedicate this article on behalf of Indian Diaspora in Auckland and also in memory of my Indian Girmitiya (indentured labourer) grandfather Bansi, to all the freedom fighters who were able to deliver this dream – a meeting with fate and cashing on the reality of an Independent India.
I am a third generation Fijian (Indo Fijian).My grandfather Bansi, was displaced from Karouli, in Rajasthan and torn and tricked from his roots by British in 1915, to slave in Fiji to fill their coffer via sugar plantation, as an indentured (Girmitiya) labourer. I made a pilgrimage to his village IN 2003.
India under a wanting leadership appear to have fallen under a huge chasm where many are still unaware of its history. It is significant that this article in written NOT by an Indian national, but a son of Indian Diaspora where umbilical cord had been cut from India some 140 years ago, and implanted in the South Pacific, in Fiji Islands as indentured labourers.
As an indentured labourer and later as a cane farmer in Fiji, my grandfather Bansi grew up craving for his motherland, Bharat, and he was in Fiji when India became Independent in 1947. I grew up affected by his patriotism, in listening to 78 RPM (rounds per minute) gramophone records which were played on those winding gramophone players. And like Abhimanyu learnt about Charavyuhu in his mother's womb, I learnt about Indian nationalism by listening to records of battles of Bhagat Singh with the British. And there were many unsung heroes of Bharat Independence. Unfortunately, huge credit for India independence is wrongly attributed to Nehru and Gandhi. But that story some other day.
Now, to my trip to India.
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| 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. As I have indicated, while these two have been attributed with India Independence, there were many other unsung heroes who appear to have been relegated by Indian history. |
As the Airbus 320 of Lufthansa Airlines glided towards Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi, it was a milestone in my life. This was a flight from Frankfurt, Germany, around midnight of 20 October, 2003. Fate destined that I , together with my good wife Shashi Kala Singh were passengers on that flight. I was filled with emotions and unprecedented feelings of delight. I had pledged on the burning pyre of my father that one day I would visit my grandfather’s birthplace, to trace my roots, and also visit the places that we only read in Holy Scriptures. The land we looked upon with awe and reverence, and called Bharat Mata –mother India.
As I stepped out, I knelt down there and picked some dust and anointed on my forehead. This was the earth where Ram and Krishn also treaded, and so did my Aaja, (paternal grandfather) Bansi. And the land we only knew from Bollywood, and little bit from my Girmitiya grandfather. This was his birthplace.
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I had good and exciting memorable times in tracing my roots to my lineage and the land of Prithviraj Chauhan, near Jaipur in a small town called Karouli in Rajasthan. I was saddened to see that the economic development and progress in India has failed to reach remote areas, as sections of the country is gripped in poverty, with deep division in the then leaders. Karouli is very close to Vrindavan, Mathura and Taj Mahal, and near stronghold of dacoits like Gabbar Singh of Sholay fame, near Chambal Valley. But those things some other day.
When the then Indian PM Indira Gandhi visited Fiji over three decades ago in 1981, she had good advice for descendants of indentured Indian labourers or Girmitiyas as we are known there. She told us that Fiji was now our country, hence we belonged there. As a result, we owed allegiance, loyalty and love for our country, Fiji.
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| Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai - the country where River Ganges flows-India. The great country where this author went in 2003 to trace his roots in Rajasthan. This Raj Kapoor movie gave world a lesson on how to treat your visitors- Atithi Deva Bhava - visitors are our Gods. This is a lesson world leaders need to learn from India. |
When Fiji’s racist and ethno-nationalist deposed Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase visited India some two decades ago, 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, jyada ki nahin laalach humko thore mein gujara hota hai... 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, he may still be ruling Fiji today. But he failed to do so at his peril. And as they say, the rest is history.
Nationalist leaders and others around the world should gain immensely from Indian history and the way of life. Ethnocentric 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 Namastey London. (Greetings to London) They need to get a translation of episode where the protagonist Akshay Kumar, shuts up the great grandson of an English East Indian Company employee who was running down India and its people.
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By clasping his hands, Akshay says that when we Indians greet each other in the tradition of five thousand year old civilization, we fold our hands close to heart in Namastey (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)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 (Europeans) 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 Indians clasp their hands in humility because they do not believe that they are above or beneath any individual…..end of the lesson.
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| Purab aur Pachhim (East and West)), Manoj Kumar's movie that tells an exemplary tale of Indian culture versus London Anglo Saxon culture. A pride in promoting our culture-very relevant to our westernised Indian Diaspora, especially teens who frown on things Indian. |
But how true are those dreams and future that Jawaharlal Nehru uttered some 70 years ago to the date?
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The service of lndia means the service of the millions who suffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity. The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us but as long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over. And so we have to labour and to work and work…”
Unfortunately, Nehru and Congress legacy has left India bereft of dignity and many things he promised over seven decades ago. For some seventy years after Independence, Congress leadership left a great deal to be desired.
Thank God for the Lion of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, who is seen as an incarnation who will rid India of the vices that have been nurtured by India's past corrupt and wanting leadership. India needed a nationalism movement that has been long overdue-but is coming.
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| "You support me and be a good Indian, and I will make India number one..." NARENDRA MODI- The Lion of Gujarat - answer to our prayers for somebody to wrest back honour, dignity and respectability that India once commanded. |
And that work shall continue under a credible leadership that took 70 years in coming.. And we are proud that India today is in better hands than ever been so, under Narendra Modi. And shall we pray that he will be able to wrest back the dignity India once had. The economic development of the last 70 years has not trickled down to the common people. There is a lot more that needs to be done, where social justice is delivered to ALL Indians.
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| A salute to India-BHARAT MAA TUJHE PRANAAM AUR NAMAN |
And as we raise the Tiranga, the tricolour flag of India, we pledge to emulate the dreams of our freedom fighters who brought independence to India and many unsung heroes who outnumber many Nehrus and Gandhis, and who paved the path for an independent BHARAT long before them.
Nehru and Gandhi merely walked on the path paved by many unsung heroes and freedom fighters before them, some notable ones being Mangal Pandey, Subhash Chandra Bose and Bhagat Singh, among others, who Indian history has FORGOTTEN AND IGNORED.
SHAT SHAT NAMAN TO ALL PAST UNSUNG HEROES OF INDIA INDEPENDENCE - BHARAT AZAADI
[ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Thakur Ranjit Singh, based in Auckland, New Zealand, is a third generation Fiji Indian. He was born in Fiji Islands. His indentured grandfather, Bansi came as an indentured labourer to Fiji in 1915. Thakur is a media commentator and journalist who runs his blog, FIJI PUNDIT. E-mail: thakurjifj@gmail.com
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