This August 15 is going to be like no other. Independence Day will be celebrated under the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic, as India’s cases cross 24 lakh and Goa’s 10,000. There will be celebrations, but they will be subdued, not matching the Independence Days of the past. For instance, all official government functions will have sparse crowds that will be following all norms of social distancing and wearing of masks. For the first time, educational institutions across the country will not see students standing at attention as the National Flag is hoisted this Independence Day, as students are home. Besides, the gaiety the marked the day will be replaced by solemnity in memory of the victims of COVID-19.
Since this Independence Day is going to be a lot different, we also need to hear a different kind of speech from the government. Every August 15 we salute the martyrs and freedom fighters, and we will do it again today. After that, the Prime Minister and the Chief Ministers of all States will speak of their achievements and announce their plans for the future. But this Independence Day India needs to know a few specifics. It needs to know how the country is going to reduce the glaring inequalities that still exist and that have surfaced during the pandemic-induced lockdown, and what is plan for the immediate future.
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While we celebrate Independence and the many achievements that it has brought us over the past 73 years, there are challenges ahead and they are many. Right now educational institutions are closed. Lakhs of people are unemployed or have lost their jobs. The economy is showing a downward trend. Industry is struggling to return to some manner of normalcy. Senior citizens are staying indoors. The sports fields are empty. The past months have exposed the wide gulf that exists between the rich and the poor in the country. The long marches that the migrants undertook to their homes after the first lockdown was announced are a stark reminder that there are still millions of people in the country who are awaiting all the benefits of freedom. We have a Constitution that guarantees certain freedoms; those have to percolate down to every one of the 1.3 billion Indians. We have seen that this has not yet occurred.
There is a hurdle in every sector that has to be surmounted in the months ahead, if India is to emerge from the pandemic and rebuild itself as a robust economy. The country needs a roadmap for the immediate future and the Independence Day is the best time for the government to announce its plans. Rather than the rhetoric that usually accompanies the Independence Day speeches, India needs to know how it is going to survive in the post-COVID era. As India looks ahead, health and economy should be priorities, but people’s safety cannot be far behind. How do we balance these priorities at a time when the novel coronavirus is spreading across the country? That is what we need to know this Independence Day.
So on August 15, rather than looking back at what we have achieved, we should enumerate what we have failed to do and take up the course correction that is required to realise this. But it can’t stop there, as the pandemic has forced the country to also think of an economic revival. The Prime Minister’s address has to reveal the measures that the government will be taking to lift India out of the economic slide it has descended into, and in Goa the Chief Minister will need to specify what revival plans his government has planned for the State.
