Republic Day-the commemoration

Below is a prized possession of our nation, a possession which holds the key to most of our problems, personal and national. Can you guess what it is?
“WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC and to secure to all its citizens:
JUSTICE, social, economic and political;
LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship;
EQUALITY of status and of opportunity
and to promote among them all
FRATERNITY assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation;
IN OUR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY this twenty-sixth day of November, 1949, do HEREBY ADOPT, ENACT AND GIVE TO OURSELVES THIS CONSTITUTION.”
This, most of us have not read since we left school, I bet. It is the preamble to our constitution. Beautiful, isn’t it? Why am I discussing the constitution today? The reason is that today, i.e. the 26th of January, 2008 is the 59th Republic day of our nation. The first republic day was celebrated on 26th January, 1950 i.e. the day when the constitution was adopted. So though today is the 59th republic day of the nation, it's been 58 years of Republic India.
Many of us, the citizens of India do not know that on the 26th of January, 1950, India became a republic and adopted a constitution (the preamble of which you have just read.) Many of us do not know that ours is the longest constitution of the world. Many of us do not know that though we won our independence on 15th August 1947, we got true and total independence on the 26th of January, 1950, because King Gorge IV was the head of our country from 1947 to 1950, until the constitution came into existence.
These 58 years of our country’s 60 years have been the rollercoaster ride for our young India. 58 years without the least of dependence, 58 years of total independence. Many things have changed. We have grown from being an agriculture based country to an industry based country, and now to a service based country. The roads, once rough are now inching towards being smooth, just like the roads of our lives. People in the infant India, our grand parents, had to travel several kilometers by walk and sometimes by a swim to get an education. We just have to catch a bus, and the farthest of the schools are a nap away. Electric power was once a dream, and now nuclear power is a reality.
Things have changed in the other way too. A republic is supposed to be a state in which supreme power is held by the people or their elected representatives or by an elected or nominated president, not by a monarch. It’s also supposed to be a society with equality between its members. These are the definitions given by Oxford dictionary. Do we the citizens of this great nation want corruption? If power is indeed in our hands then why is corruption the order of the way? Last week, on the 19th of this month to be precise, the following was the report published by ibnlive.com, the official website of CNN-IBN, India’s leading English news channel. I’m quoting from ibnlive.com, “The World Bank report speaks of financial irregularities, construction of sub-standard hospitals, health centres, and purchase of poor instruments and medicines under the Rs 417 crore rupee Orissa Health Systems Development Project by the state government.” This is regarding the Orissa Health Systems Development Project funded by the World Bank. Is power indeed in our hands? A report published under Transparency Bribe Payer's Index 2006 had ranked India as the most corrupt nation in the world. It’s hard to believe, but the bottom-line is that our nation is corrupt. If power is in our hands, then why the corruption? In an expose by Right To Information (RTI) activists and trustees of the RTI Study Centre, The Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) bought computers worth Rs 3.4 crore in 2005. According to RTI, the computers were bought on paper, just on paper. There were no actual computers. So, are we in power? According to a recent six-monthly Indian Express-CNN-IBN-CSDS State of the Nation Survey, 47% of Indian women feel insecure outside their homes. The numbers are the highest in the metros. We obviously do not want this to happen. So where is the power we are supposed to have?
A republic is supposed to be a society with equality between its members. Most of us practice equality, but picture this. Police officers of a higher caste refuse to eat in the same room as police officers of a lower caste. This happened in Bihar after Nitish Kumar became the C.M. As if this was not enough, recently it was reported in the media that children of a school refused to eat food given by the school since the food was being served by two people of a lower caste. Even children! How could the parents do this? People opting for other religions out of choice too are at times troubled. Yes, the preamble does say that we have liberty of faith and worship. Then how come a republic state like ours witnesses such anti-republic activities? Don’t we have the power?
Yes, we do have the power. The problem is that neither do we understand the responsibility that one has to shoulder as a citizen of a republic state nor do we practice our powers the way we should. The examples given above scream this truth in our mute faces. I could as well go on and write an encyclopedia on the anti-democratic events in our democratic country, but I believe we have got the point. Let’s realize the power we have. Let’s be more aware of what’s happening around us. Let’s be more vocal about the issues we feel for, in sync with our constitution. Let’s spread this message around. The Republic Day is a reminder of the fact that India is a republic, lest we forget. Today is the 26th of January, 2008. It’s not the end of 58 years of Republic India, it’s the beginning of the 59th year. Lets start our 59th republic year with the right foot forward. Happy Republic Day.