Freedom is the Oxygen for the very idea India!.

It is not only the Children of UP who die without oxygen, it is also the very idea of India that will begin to die without the oxygen of Freedom. It is the slow and steady suffocation of the idea of free India that pose great challenge to the very idea , ideal and future of India.
 Struggles for Freedom is what unified the people of India across caste, creed, religion and region. It is the promise of inclusive Indian nationalism that sustains the very idea of India. When the freedom gets discounted and unfreedom begins to unfold that will undermine the very idea of India- and also the unity of the Indians people as the people of India..

Freedom is what made India possible. It is the struggle for freedom that unified the people who speak different languages and with diverse historical trajectories. If the British never ruled India, history would have been different. Because before them no empire in India included most of the parts of the country now we call as India. The subcontinent was politically dispersed with numerous small feudal kingdoms warring with each other.

Even during the Mughal rule , it was largely North-West India or up to Deccan. It is the British domination that included most of the landmass of India with establishment of the rule of law( though most of them oppressive) unified administration and institutions( Survey of India, Archaeological Survey of India, Indian Railways etc) Paradoxically, it is the English language, their version of history, Indian railways and the widely shared sense of injustice and extractive exploitation that paved the way for a political resistance imagination that emerged in the second half of 19th century and thus emerged what is now called and revered as the Indian Nationalism. In other words there was nothing called primordial Indian Nationalism or Civilizational nationalism. Nationalism itself is a modern political project and narrative.

What we now as the Indian nationalism is a construct emerged mostly towards the end of 19th century.- constructing a past, ironically based on the history written by those from Britain or Europe. Even the Indus valley Civilization is identified based on the excavation only in 1920s. It was Sir John Hubert Marshall who began excavation in 1921-22 and resulting in the discovery of the civilization at Harappa by Sir John Marshall, Rai Bahadur Daya Ram Sahni and Madho Sarup Vats, and at Mohenjo-daro The Mohenjedoro -Harappa is largely identified by the Archaeological Survey of India under the British Raj in 1861.
The first publication of a Harappan seal dates back to only 1875, in the form of a drawing by Alexander Cunningham. While certainly there have been a lots of material evidence and also the existence of ancient temples and monuments, it is the discovery of the Indus valley civilization ( in the present day Pakistan and North-west India) that established the long civiliizational heritage of the subcontinent.

In many ways the Colonial reading of India denied the multiple diversity of India and reduced these multiple diversity only on religious lines seen from a British perspective. The first modern history of India was the well known work by James Mill published in early 19th century - The history of British India ( 1818-23). It is Mill who did the periodization of Indian history in to three periods :the Hindu Civilization, Muslim Civilization and the British Period and such periodization was based on ruling powers and the religious identity. This very construct of Colonial history - based on religious identity, later on helped the British to divide people on the basis of religion and also helped to form multiple notions of nationalism based on religion. Hence paradoxically the Colonial reading and writing of history also in multiple ways influenced the multiple and often competing narratives on nationalisms in the sub-continent including the two -nation theory propounded by religious nationalists on both sides of the spectrum( Hindu Mahasabha- and later by RSS and Muslim League) .

In fact most of the writings on the ancient Sanskrit texts and heritage is also based on the work of European scholars like Max Muller, William Jones, Charles Wilkins etc. They translated some Sanskrit texts into English and attempted to prove the supremacy of ancient Indian culture, its heritage and philosophy. Some Indian scholars like R.G. Bhandarkar, H.P. Shastri etc. also helped in reviving the past glory of India.In other words, all these knowledge and language process helped the new English educated elites( largely those from the Brhamin community erstwhile Bombay and Bengal Provinces as they had early access to English education). If we read the narratives of 19 century and early 20th century nationalist writings one can see how these knowledge process influenced the multiple imaginative narratives on what is termed as the Indian nationalism.

It is the very same colonial or European narratives on Indian history and its ancient civilizational heritage that gave rise to multiple counter-narratives as resistance platform, though largely by upper-caste Brhamin elites of two dominant provinces( Bombay and Bengal) of the Briitish India. These multiple narratives of nationalism often based on religious sub-texts dominated the multiple responses to the British Colinialism and the economic injustice based on extractive colonial domination.

It is only by the 1920s that an inclusive nationalist discourse emerged as a unified struggle against British Colonial power. Gandhiji's major contribution is this creation of a major counter-metanarrative of inclusive Indian nationalism that sought to construct a discourse across the country and also across the religions and across all the caste divides. This meta-narrative of Inclusive Indian nationalism is the idea that propelled towards an independent and free India. Unlike the religious identity based nationalist narrative based on the past-glory as told by the Colonial historians and European writers, Gandhi drew from Buddhism and multiple Indian heritages and also drew from movements and writings across the world- including the writings of Tolstoy( who was in many ways outside the British-European imagination). This eclectic approach of Gandhi and based on his own personal experience of discrimination and fight against discrimination actually gave rise to a meta- counter-narrative of Indian nationalism as propounded by the Indian National Congress. It is this inclusive nationalism that largely used English as the lingua-franca is what unified the people of Indian across languages, religion, geographies and caste barriers. And the very purpose of this was the 'Freedom Struggle'

Hence this idea of 'Struggles for Freedom' that defined the very idea of the inclusive Indian nationalism of the Indian national Congress. This stress on Freedom and civil liberties. This was very well articulated in the Karchi session of the Indian National Congress in 1931.Karachi Session was presided over by Vallabhai Patel . Nehru drafted the Karachi resolution.

It is the Karachi resolution that gave Indian National Congress and the inclusive Indian nationalism a clear ideological direction. This included the following:

Basic civil rights of freedom of speech, Freedom of Press, Freedom of assembly, Freedom of association,
Equality before law
Elections on the basis of Universal Adult Franchise
Free and compulsory primary education.
Substantial reduction in rent and taxes
Better conditions for workers including a living wage, limited hours of work.
Protection of women and peasants
Government ownership or control of key industries, mines, and transport.
Protection of Minorities.

It is precisely this value-based narrative of the Indian Nationalism that enraged the upper-cast relgious nationalist of Hindutwa variety and the Islamist based nationalism of the Muslim League variety. The paradox of the history is that to counter the value based Freedom narrative of the Indian nationalism, the two other streams of religious nationalism sided with the British. The proponents of the Hindutwa nationalism opposed to the inclusive value based freedom nationalism of the Congress by siding with the British Imperialiam. This hegemonic exclusive nationalism of Hindutwa variety is what is now dreaming of Congress mukta' bharth. So this is basically a fight for the very soul of Indian nationalism. The key question is whether we need to stand up with Freedom, Justice , Rights and Rule of Law as clearly articulated in the Indian Constitution. Or whether we should discount all these and go with the populist authoritarian hegemonic and exclusive Hindutwa ideological nationalism of the old Hindu Mahasabha and then RSS?

It is the very making of the Constitution of India, led by Dr. BR Ambedkar that made India a democratic sovereign republic. Hence Constitution is what constitute the Indian Nationalism of an inclusive " We the People'. Constitution of India is non-negotiable as it is the very grammar of India and without the Constitution there is no India. And it is the idea of a free and independent India that we love.

"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[6]
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."

That is the choice the people of India must make. The choices between Freedom and Unfreedom. The choice between inclusive nationalism based on respect for Freedom, rights, diversity, pluralism and a unified India. I will always stand with Freedom. And it is time for the Indian National Congress to redeem the Karachi resolution in its letter and spirit and once again herald the uncompromising inclusive nationalism based on the values of Karachi resolution. It is a choice that will determine the very future of this country and also the future of the country. Freedom is non negotiable. It is the struggles for Freedom that united as a people . And it will be the struggle for Freedom what will help us to remain as the 'We the People of India'.

Hence 'We the people' constitute the nation. It is not the government of the day or for governments sake we celebrate our freedom. It is for our own sake ( We the People) that we celebrate freedom. Because freedom is not what a government bestow on us. Independence is not the favour of a government. It is not the speech by some leaders on some Fort that make us to realize the freedom. It is we who realize our freedom by standing up for justice, human rights and equality before Rule of Law. It is we who make freedom possible through struggles against all those who promote unfreedom. Hence, it is a remainder to ourselves that we are indeed independent. We will indeed celebrate our freedom and assert our rights, irrespective of the parties and leaders in the government and irrespective of their double talk and despite all their hypocrisies. Because we need to keep reclaiming our country from all kinds of unfreedom, injustice, discrimination and lies. We have a moral and political responsibility transform the country from a Republic of Fear and Lies to our Republic of Free and Fair India.India for Everybody, Everyday and Everywhere.

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