Incidents that happened over six decades ago are not easy to recall, particularly if you are a 102-year-old, but Raghunath Gangaram Lakeshri’s recollection of India’s fight for independence is vivid and exact. This freedom fighter from Maharashtra’s Raigarh can narrate, with ease and without aid, the incidents that followed Mahatma Gandhi's clarion call asking the British to ‘Quit India’ in 1942. He can recall how people were ready to sacrifice their lives for their country's freedom; and how there was a common aspiration to see a united, democratic India.
What he can’t understand anymore is how the people of this country, that fought together against a common enemy, are now fighting with each other.
The growing clamour for separate States, the fight for territory based on religion, language and ethnic identities, is a manifestation of a divided people, he says. “He is very sad; he says his generation fought hard to secure swaraj (self rule) and swatantrata (independence), but now he has begun to question whether it was worth fighting for freedom. The British were overthrown because of their zulam (atrocities), but what about the zulam of our own people?” asked Subodh, Mr. Lakeshri’s grandson who does the talking on his behalf. Mr. Lakeshri who took part in the Salt Satyagraha and was imprisoned seven times between 1940 and 1947, is hard of hearing . He was recently invited to a At Home in Rashtrapati Bhavan where President Pranab Mukherjee felicitated and interacted with over 100 other freedom fighters.
“He feels we have all let down Mahatma Gandhi and no one follows his simple living, high-thinking tenets anymore. Sometimes he asks, just what it would take for the netas (political leaders) to return to the path that was shown by Gandh ji and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru,” said Subodh.
“Grandfather says it is time for India to draw closer, become more united and remain prepared to take on the enemy instead of fighting with each other over who gets which part of land. Recently, he told a politician that this clamour for States will only create more trouble; if it continues and corruption goes unchecked, India will see a civil war like Libya.”
A divided, corrupt India that will forget what leaders preached also worries 89-year-old Mahendra Sharma from Delhi. A freedom fighter who participated in the Quit India movement in Lahore, Ms. Sharma said the younger generation fails to understand the relevance of the freedom movement.
“My own grandson was disapproving when I told him that I went to jail for this country’s independence. He couldn’t understand why I am so proud of having been to a prison! Even the older generation that has been part of India’s development as a nation post-1947 has lost sight of the vision with which the Constitution was framed,” she lamented.
As a student of Lahore College, Ms. Sharma was lodged in the Lahore jail for participating in the Quit India movement. “We were so passionate about the struggle that even a jail sentence did not dissuade us. We would stealthily hoist the Indian flag inside our cell every morning and keep it hidden. We looked up to our leaders who led by example, but unfortunately, now both the leadership and the people are more interested in building their personal wealth rather than focussing on what is good for the nation,” says Ms. Sharma, who worked as a teacher in Delhi for several years.
“The youth need to be told and retold the story of India’s struggle for freedom. We are slowly beginning to forget what the freedom movement was all about and the people who fought hard for our independence,” she regretted.
Ms. Sharma, however, is hopeful that with the right examples to emulate, people will follow the right path. “We need leaders who can lead us. For instance, this year, too, on the anniversary of the Quit India movement we were invited to Rashtrapati Bhavan to meet the President. And unlike the previous years, this time, President Pranab Mukherjee met with each one of us and greeted us personally. It was not a perfunctory interaction, he connected with us that made us feel good. The freedom movement and the fighters need that recognition and the country needs to keep working to retain and enhance our independence.”
