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Young World
Upholding the glory of the nation is our duty
B.O.SEBASTIAN
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We must love our country and do our best for it.
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Photo: Gautam Singh
Youth: Our country, our pride.
It is six decades since India won independence, to become the biggest democracy on earth. We are often reminded that we are Indians first and Indians last. Sir Walter Scott had asked, “Breathes there the man with soul so dead, who never to himself hath said, this is my own, my native land; Whose heart never within him burned as home
his footsteps he has turned, from wandering on a foreign strand?” On 26th November 1949, we gave to ourselves the Constitution which promises to secure to all citizens sovereignty, democracy, secularism, and socialism. But to a large extent hasn’t it taken the shape of nepotism, despotism, vandalism and hooliganism?
We are forced to ask ourselves like Henry Vivian Derozio, “Where is our glory now? And isn’t our eagle pinion chained down at last?”
Earnest prayer
We have to pray like Rabindranath Tagore did, to awaken our countrymen and lead us to that heaven of freedom, where the mind is without fear and the head is held high.
At present, we are in the midst of contradictions. “We are at the best of time and the worst of time,” as Charles Dickens wrote in the first line of his book, The Tale of Two Cities, about the French revolution. While there has been degeneration of values and institutions, our country has been in the path of progress on some fronts.
Our food production has increased to feed a good share of people in the over-populated Republic. Let us not lose heart. We must be aware that most people are unreasonable, illogical and self-centred.
Let us do good, be honest, and grow day after day. Let us give the world the best we have. Isn’t it better to light a candle than curse darkness? Teachers can only pass on this message to you, to fulfil the aspirations of our freedom fighters.
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