“FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS”

India celebrated its 75^th Independence Day this 15^th of August. All forms of media - digital or print - were brimming with expressions of felicity and displays of flag waving. 

(Ahhhh! Flag Waving. 72^nd Republic Day. Red Fort. Oh, what a blotch on memory now!)

Unfortunately, however, the merrymaking had a tinge of guilt concealed this time.

Why?

AFGHANISTAN.

Here we were, celebrating our Independence; while there, people lost their sovereignty to the Taliban in a most sadistic takeover of power. If cries could kill, every person watching the news of the Afghans would be dead. Every status update and every wish of joie de vivre was accompanied with a sheepish sigh of relief, “Thank Heavens! At least we are Free and Independent.”

Each one of us had a skeleton hidden in the closet, a shared secret embarrassment. After years of shaming and blaming our nation and questioning democracy, questioning our rights, our constitution, questioning FREEDOM (I don’t know if Indians too don’t enjoy liberty, then who the Devil does), one episode put a seal on our mouths - AFGHANISTAN. 

The seal ought to be quite literally existent for most of us since we haven’t been able to voice one word of concern for the Afghans. The Islamic sects who invoke the Sharia at every chance they get have magically gone mute. The Muslim nations who almost always have their lorgnettes surveilling India have currently lost their field glasses. The people who make a drama out of political hiccups have no content to sensationalize. 

World Peace? Human Rights? International Cooperation? Transnational Harmony? Does any of it ring a bell?

INDEPENDENCE.

Say it again.

IN – DE – PEN – DENCE.

We often fail to acknowledge the importance and the essence of this word. We grow careless, thankless and stubborn, hardly ever making time to count our blessings. Freedom for us is simply a word to be evoked selfishly from the dusty libraries of our mind when the needle rests in our direction. It’s a crying shame how we have used and misused this word to the point of fallacy in the name of our liberators. Every other day some buffoon shows up on broadcasts howling, “I have a right to freedom of speech.” It’s no matter of concern to him that his hate speech can only lead to a Battle Royale. And yet, when the actual hour of action comes, all these heralds of rights disappear.

Afghans hain na, unke freedom se hamara kya? Khud nipat lenge.

It’s a slur on humanity that a term whose history has been woven by a united effort of dissimilar hands, is now unraveled and split up, with every person being responsible for his own liberty. Soon enough a similar calamity will come banging at our doors and we’ll fail to gather help to prevent it from barging in.

John Donne proclaimed in his famous sermon, “Any man’s death diminishes me, for I’m involved in mankind.” 

Food for thought – For whom the bell tolls? Is it just the Afghans? Or is it an indication of a greater crisis that'll soon infect the entire humanity?