Three words immortalized Gandhi’s call for passive resistance against the colonization.

Three words that formed a mantra which beckoned the people of a nation to wake up to a new reality, and the possibility of freedom.

Three words that are still superfreaking relevant in today’s day and age.

While on a project in Bombay, I was put-up a stone’s throw away from the August Kranti Maidan, or the Gowalia Tank, where Mahatma Gandhi delivered the Quit India speech on this day over six decades ago, the 8th of August 1942. There are no signs of Gandhi there anymore, and it is saddening. It’s a pity to see that the ‘do or die’ approach is today reduced to run-chases by a country’s national cricket team, because that fervour for national service is either invisible, or worse - missing.

Personally, I salute Gandhi’s heart for India, and his vision. However, I do not believe that Ahimsa was the best approach to deal with invaders. To me, Gandhi wasn’t simply rooted in non-violence - he was blinded by it - and a nation’s quest for freedom cannot rest entirely on blind faith. That, for me, was a major flaw in Gandhi’s approach. Besides, I find it difficult to forgive Gandhi for not exploiting his power over the will of people to unite the nation physically. Gandhi vowed that he would never see the country partitioned, yet he quietly accepted it as a harsh reality.

I also hold freedom fighters like Bhagat Singh and Chandrashekhar Azad in the highest regard, mutineers who practiced another form of do or die, to the extent that he is identified as a terrorist in British history. His Atheistic approach shunned the leash of religions, ironically, uniting Hindus and Muslims as well. In spite of their ideals and their flaws, and in spite of all our flaws as a secular democracy today, I and a million others are indebted to them, for the simple reason that we were born in free India.

What is interesting to note is that Gandhi and Bhagat Singh both had the same objective. They both did, and did things differently. They both died, under different circumstances. Gandhi’s loyalty to deontological ethics and his obsession with non-violence curbed the hostility towards those who deserved it, translating his aggression into a defensive model that should not be confused with a ‘wait and watch’ approach. Bhagat Singh, however, was more of a consequentialist, ready to take a ‘wrong’ path to achieve the ‘right’ cause. A balance between these approaches seems to be the impossible solution, even today.

Reverting to the speech, it is both stirring and balanced, yet it emotionally illustrates Gandhi’s dream that still holds true today:

In the democracy which I have envisaged, a democracy established by non-violence, there will be equal freedom for all. Everybody will be his own master. It is to join a struggle for such democracy that I invite you today. Once you realize this you will forget the differences between the Hindus and Muslims, and think of yourselves as Indians only, engaged in the common struggle for independence.

I ask you, the people: How much has changed since that day? And how have we digressed from religious harmony? Till when are my people going to bind themselves to blind and baseless beliefs? What kind of secular nation promotes a system with reservations? What kind of democracy revokes power from the people?

Many questions. I’m looking for the answers. A speech provoked a nation to free itself from the reins of colonization and imperialism. Today, we need a speech like that to provoke this nation against two enemies: Western arrogance, and self-colonization.

Where art thou, Father? Where art thou?