The Indian Flag! The Nation our ancestors bled for?

As I sit by my window, and the mainstream media screams and howls backs in hindsight, a deep ache crawls through my chest, as if I want to hold every Indian citizen, shake them up, and tell them the struggles and sacrifices that were made, to create the India we are living and breathing in today. My heart cries with disappointment as I look at the religious and linguistic barriers that have labelled us into "you,me, him,her,them,they". The India that was once the iconic team of the finest brain storming politicians who took the country forward are watching us from the heavens, looking at the wreck we have created out of this nation! Their ambitions being shattered by us, all the beliefs they had, and they poured into the largest written Constitution: being thrown away by us.

I wandered into my library and gazed at the large map of India that was placed under my official glass desk. The horrors of the partition, the tremors of British India and their anarchy, the tyrant and their chords of divide and rule stirred my heart. I remembered the tales of the Punjab Boundary Act (16th August 1947), which came into play one day after India gaining independence as people of (once the United Punjab) : the part of 'United Non-partitioned India' tore apart from the Western edge with a piercing ache, and from the Eastern edge: Bengal was ripped apart with hollowing shudder. The wild cacophony of the cries of people leaving their home, dreams, and migrating to what would be their new homeland still echoes in my dreams. My grandmother was just seventeen when it happened, as her mother along with four other kids, with one in my grandmother's lap crawled from the North Western Punjab to the newly made borders of India. My great grandfather told my grandmother's mother to march forward as the atrocities were growing, and women were being molested with their clothes being stripped from both ends. He was once a freedom fighter, but at that moment, he played the role of a Sikh who gave his turban away to save the modesty of a woman.

In 2011, as my grandmother was successfully recovering from her bypass surgery and the news roared with the words of the assassination of Osama Bin laden, all of us cheered. Which person in the right state would not like to hear a terrorist being blown apart! And then my dadi said, "in undivided India, this "Abettobad" is the place we migrated from. She continued in a voice soaked with memories, I grew here, it was a unified India back then, we had to leave our big old mansion to find a beehive in Jalandhar that must have been left out by the people who were evading India. She narrated how her father was persistent to stay there in midst of the tension and play his role, and commanded his wife to go away with the kids. His voice was the one of assurance that said, "I will find my way back, don't you worry, go". My grandmother's mother (Biji) pleaded her rich merchant Muslim neighbour whom she considered no less than a brother to atleast get her the sewing machine sent by any cattle heading that way, and he fulfilled his promise, and somehow my Biji's ancient tricks of curing cold with Kahwas, and sewing the best clothes for everyone in the village made her famous, and it was easy for my great grandfather to find her.

I remained silent, as my dadi broke down into hysterical sobs sharing how mass burial were done for the deceased ones. People were dying of starvation, they drew a boundary right between the homes of the once mighty ancient Punjab. Today, when I look at the chaos around me, I think what would happen if India would be ripped apart again, and this time not by the efforts of outsiders, but our own people, the politicians sitting at the top. What if 70 years from now, I would be narrating a story of a refugee to my grandchildren? I have seen my ancestors bleed for the soil, fight for it, and therefore it's natural for me to feel sad when a bunch of dummies try to break my country.

Because every time I look at the map of India, I’m reminded of the sacrifices etched into its borders: the courage, the blood, the grit of those who gave us this land. Do we even remember the names behind this glittering freedom? Do you know about V.P. Menon, the braniac architect who worked relentlessly to unite over 500+ princely states into a single nation, a single territory of India? Do we understand the diplomatic brilliance it took to convince the mighty and proud Maharajas to surrender their crowns for the birth of a republic, under a single domain of India: Bharat: Hindustan!

Today, as the history chapters are being erased, we must question ourselves and the nation: why remove the Mughals from textbooks while still showcasing the creations summoned under their empire: Taj Mahal, Red Fort, Agra Fort as tourist landmarks? Do these monuments not represent centuries of culture and architectural genius? Or is the identity of their creators now too inconvenient to acknowledge for the propogandist beliefs of a nation that is dying in inflation and succumbing rupee?

Tipu Sultan, the Tiger of Mysore reached out to Napoleon Bonaparte in hopes of freeing India from colonial chains. And yet, instead of rallying around him, Marathas, Nizams, and the British allied to bring him down. What hurts the worst, when the enemies kill you or when your own people betray you! But since the last eleven years, these stories have been forgotten as if they vanished from the surface of earth. As if no one remembers that this is the great land of Ashoka to Samudragupta, and Akbar to Tipu, Shivaji Maharaj to Guru Gobind Singh. This is even the home to the Tatas, the Parsis who being the lemon zest to our rough and edgy cake. Their work has been constantly laying down the foundation for India on a business front.

Why were the chapters on the RSS and its role in Gandhi’s assassination scrubbed clean once the Vajpayee government came to power? Why is Godse remembered by some as a hero, when he murdered the very man who championed nonviolence and unity, and created a wave of panic with his fasts among the Britishers? Veer Savarkar, once hailed as a revolutionary, pledged loyalty to the British Raj. And those who took vows of celibacy in the name of nationalism under RSS, how many are sitting with three or more children now? How many RSS people were freedom fighters and are backing up the national defence at borders with Bulgarian rifles? What about the terror of the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984, and the sikh genocide that followed its aftermath chasing innocent Sikhs, to the 2002 Godhra and back forth Hindu Muslim Gujarat riots.

Indira Gandhi, with fierce resolve, helped sever East Pakistan to give birth to Bangladesh, ensuring India was no longer surrounded from its western to eastern horizon by hostile forces making the country weak? Was that a minor feat? How many jawans gave their lives to protect the idea of India, so we could live in peace, sleep in solace? They etched out this Indian map for you, so that you respect its value.

And yet today, we tear ourselves apart over religion, language, and region. We dishonor our legacy when men from Bajrang Dal wave flags of Hanuman with one hand and harass women with the other. With one hand you are carrying the flag mast of one of the purest Gods in Indian Mythology, yet your second hand pinches a woman in the crowd? We dishonour the nation when Sikhs call for Khalistan, and Muslims stay persistent with orthodox beliefs? Kannadigas would only talk in Kannada, Stalin thinks about a wild dream or Dravidstan! What will we achieve with this sadist ideology of "Me first, our language first, our state first, our caste first". Hinduism is a religion which is an amalgam of so many faiths, that which faith will you choose to rule over, even if you turn towards the ideas of a complete Hindu nation, and how would the Indian map look like?

India may struggle to put food on every plate—but it is overflowing with hate mongers, using the same old colonial strategy of divide and rule. And we, tragically, are playing right into their hands.

So just for a moment: look at the map again. Not as a North Indian, South Indian, Bengali, Tamilian, Hindu, Muslim, or Christian, but simply as an Indian. Ask yourself: is this the nation our ancestors bled for? And if not, are you willing to let it crumble?

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