About 40 years back, a school in one of the small towns down the southern tip of India had a lesson on Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak in class four English textbook. The same Bal Gangadhar Tilak who declared boldly to the world that “Swaraj is my Birth right and I shall have it”. At that point in time, I was one among the young minds who were inspired by him.
Everyday, enroute my office, I pass by the statue of Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak situated here in
chowpatty (beach) in South Mumbai. This reminds me of the day, many years back
when my father had first taken me to this same place to show the statue of
Tilak during one our vacation trips to Mumbai.
Lucky for Tilak, he
aspired for just one birth right, the Swaraj, self-rule, or freedom from the
British. It was a slogan that inspired the country and the subsequent leaders
of Indian freedom movement. It is said that the weapon should suit the
opponent. The ‘weapons’ that the leaders of India’s freedom movement chose
whether it is non-cooperation, hunger strike, Satyagraha or whatever were
successful only because they exploited an inherent weakness in their opponent. The Indians would have never won the mighty
British in a traditional warfare.
In my daily commute, I
see the nomads sleeping on footpaths of this same Mumbai, children begging at
traffic signals, poverty, lack of housing and much more even after 75 years of Swaraj! We have not just one but many birth rights now! The
right to clean air, right to clean drinking water, food, clothing, housing, hassle
free roads to commute and the list is endless.
Back to daily routines, stray
cats in our campus are a source of inspiration not to miss the daily walks.
They come running for the few pieces of cat food offered to them during our
morning and evening walks. Among them, there is one particular male cat that stands out
from the crowd. He has all the mannerisms of a cat minus the meow sound.
Probably dumb! He shows no signs of aggression and knows to rescue itself from all
other fellow cats in the neighbourhood who come running for a fight with him.
In the last two years that I have known him, he doesn’t even have a minor
scratch on his body.
Sometimes I feel our situation
too is not quite different from this cat. Raising voice for our birth rights
has become futile. Our problems are to be solved by our own elected people. The
fight is with them, and our arsenal is replete with archaic weapons. Like the
dumb cat, our voices too are lost in the crowd and the resolution of the issues
seems remote. Like the cat who survives this
hostile world, we too should find innovative means to rescue ourselves from all
adversities around and strive for our birth rights.
What else can we do in this
world’s largest “demons crazy” ?
