This Independence...

This Independence

This Independence of 2015, I wish to shed more the Indiaddict  in me.

I thought I shed the Indiaddict entirely after the jaunt with India Against Corruption that kicked me in the butt so hard when I found being a victim of a coup by a few masterminds. A coup that attempted  merely to throw out an existing Government. There fell the euphoria and passions of an Indiaddict.

India Against Corruption was christened so, as corruption was a good vehicle to ignite the fire among the people wanting to be at the next level. In 1947 too, the rumours were more galore than genuine methods, and emotions were engaged to fillip the want to kick a Government. Street bravado and life sacrifices celebrated more than purposeful dimensions. At that time however, the will was to lead independently so the good, bad, capable or not was acceptable.

Before being christened so, IAC was a small group of people very proudly including I, got together just coincidentally, in conceiving a vehicle to build a connect between the policy makers and the public. It was an honest attempt I thought in an environment when the pillars of democracy were crumbling in ethics, integrity and morals. As the enormous powerful Heroes and Legends got engaged more closely, the honest attempt was converted into an engineered ploy by piping the emotions and leading them to the cause of the few.

#Modi may have had a very different way to win the elections of 2014 but he cannot deny being the beneficiary of the charade that #Anna, #Kiran Bedi, #General V K Singh, #Ramdev, #Sri Sri among others played more with the view to bring in a party of their choice at the National level.

In the bargain street theatrics of Arvind Kejriwal usurped the vulnerability of India by bringing in an absolute Government, albeit limited to Delhi. Kejriwal went a step further. He demonstrated that if the mood of the people was hideously captured, a Government can be formed in India by the absolute naïve.

What is the Indiaddiction thingie? Does it see a direction for empowered people?

Cricket can not emancipate it. Bravado and military victories in the neighbourhood cannot emancipate it. Slogans, slogans and slogans cannot emancipate it.

In absence of the emancipation the Soul flutters more.

A surreal dream will not emancipate it. Not even the heroics of Rama, Krishna and Hanuman. Nor being the sacrificial hero for a cause as told by the Allah, the Christ and demonstrated by Ram, Sita, Sati or Gandhi for a human cause. Idealistic fervors cannot make it any more than a poetic dream.  

And where does Indiaddiction breed from? Does its origin lay in a newfound name that became our own for the first time in 1947? As India captured many more  geographic boundaries existed within or beyond the new boundary of 1947 called India defined over generations by ethnic groups, communities, kingdoms and perhaps even civilisations. Even the geographies of Bharat or Aryavarta did not quite define the more wholesomeness of India.

The search for the cause can be timeless but the name was new, fanciful and its signature was louder than the remoteness of a land within India.

A Brand manager would say: "you got the name right, baby! Now go find its compelling plot". The plot existed readily with over a thousand homogenous. I wonder if the Litti eater in Dhanbad would have ever accepted the Idli eater readily if the relationship was not Indian.

Many nations who have been through foreign rule never got caught by such an euphoric addiction. The Turk, the Thai, the Gabonese do not have it. Even the German is more addicted to the Beer and its Soccer. For most the Day of Independence is a happy celebration! Not a celebration of militia.

Indiaddiction may not have its plot defined but it reinforced the will to give up the boundaries and integrate. The Tamil willingly gave in their Dhoti with a sandal base tikka image. The less privileged kicked the good-for-nothing image and took over education. The Bihari broke the barriers of lazing. The local baniya threatened the might of an industrial empire. And many others wanted to set a mark in the new zone called the Centre - as a professional, in Government Service, in politics, in media or in business closer to the policymakers. Be one with the makers of India’s destiny that was not private and confidential.

I still wish to shed the Indiaddiction because I can be on the wiser side of it without being in a demonstrable avatar.

I can be the Indian without flaunting my Dhoti. I can be the Indian using fork and knives at the breakfast. I can be the Indian saying “Holy Cow! Why are you getting the pangs without a crisis?”. I can still be the Indian sitting in New York leading a business that does not have India on its roadmap. I can be the de addicted Indian. 

And I want to be de Indiaddicted wholly and substantially.