Independence woes

Ever wondered why India celebrates its Independence on the 15th of August every year, and not on any other day? Especially considering that Pakistan celebrates it on the 14th. There’s an account in the very famous book 'Freedom at Midnight' (Its a book I would really recommend for reading, though it must be remembered that no book which has only one persons views can be taken to be an authority, granted that memoirs are written to indemnify from the mistakes of the past)
Once the date was publicised, a soothsayer came to Lord Mountbatten and warned that there could be no day more inauspicious to mark the future of a country. He said that the day would see a bloodbath due to communal riots. The last viceroy of India laughed it away. He was going to give a multitude what they were clamouring for since god knows when. He could not believe there could be another side to the story. After all, who would want to listen to a doomsayer.He had handpicked the date because it was a lucky day for him. Some years ago, he had won an important battle in Japan on this day, in recognition of which he was made a Lord.
He later regretted his oversight. He had momentarily lost sight of the fact that India was still the place you could find the 20000 varieties of cheese, as one of his former prime ministers did observe. That this was a country that was to embark on an experiment never tried in history. The experiment of eaters of 20000 varieties of cheese having a few (who inevitably ate the same variety) deciding which was the national variety. The day was indeed a blood wash. And the man who orchestrated the whole independence movement with a methodology hitherto unknown to the world wasn’t sitting in parliament at midnight that day to cheer what was remaining of the nation. The Father of our nation rather chose to spend his day at the eastern border, collecting the ruins of the great dream he had lived to see. Telling what had become a madhouse that it was so that we could live as brothers in freedom that so many people gave there lives, not for us to lose it for some make believe reasons which, as always, rarely make sense. In Punjab and Bengal, people were celebrating, not on the sight of the tricolour, but seeing the red pouring out of their slaughter. Hindus killing muslims who chose not to leave the country of their birth, and sikhs killing everybody.
While Nehru was reminding our forefathers of the tryst the new nation had with destiny, there was the lot rewriting the destiny of who they christened as foes. It hasn’t really changed, has it?
So that brings me to my question, at what price our freedom?
60 years. And what have we achieved along. Our poor are still poor. Our polliticians are infinitely corrupt. And we would have been better off without the set of leaders that stain the face of parliament, the same hall in which Nehru declared our destiny.
There is just one question we can ask ourselves today. Do we value our freedom? And if we do, what are we doing with it? No dont ask that question to those criminals who wear khadi. ask you and we. Because, after all, India is you and me.I received a text message yesterday. Lets celebrate the foolishness of the stupid people who gave their lives thinking we deserved freedom.
Forbid that the tomorrow of India say that aloud