75-years on a human is old. It’s a wrinkled, diseased and a much slower version of what the person was in 1947. But when we say a country in 75-years old, it seems to be still younger and full of vibrancy – its just 7.5 decades and for a country of over 1 billion, this seems to be just the beginning of youth.

As we enter into our “Amrit Mahotsav” we look back and then ahead – what we see is that we as a country have indeed come a very, very long way. Life as we knew in 1947 and the India we lived then is very different today in 2021. The very culture, the priorities, the needs and how we are perceived abroad – everything has undergone a massive change. 75 years ago, we were looked upon as a nation of poor, malnourished people, with the Indian rope trick and the levitating fakir denoting what we all stood for. Today, 75 years on, every country wants to setup shop here, sell their goods to the billion Indians and as a picture, probably a software engineer working on a computer is the image that comes to mind.

The economic change which has happened over the last 75 years is huge – the mobile revolution, internet and online living, the growing private sector, increasing role of women in forming the society, empowerment through education, the opening up of the economy and dismantling of the license Raj, the rise and rise of the new middle class and consumption, disinvestment of PSUs, booming and vibrant stock market, Indian companies buying out multi-billion dollar foreign companies, dismantling of the Planning Commission to be replaced by Niti Aayog, advent of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, major tax reforms, giving wings to entrepreneurship – yes, the India we live in today is very different from the one our forefathers grew up in.

Our set of problems remain, some more pronounced and some very new ones. But then every nation, however successful it may be, has issues and in every country, the politicians are often blamed and rarely celebrated.

Though it is very shameful how our Parliament ended sine dine in this 75th year during its Monsoon session, for now, as 15th August comes, let us look at only what we have achieved so far; the rest of the days are there for criticizing, moaning and complaining. Like we say, at least on the birthday, let’s not abuse the birthday girl!

There are many things wrong, very wrong in this new India but let’s feel thankful about being Indians – just turn around and see the neighbouring countries and you will feel blessed.

Let this 75th  15-August be about celebrating India and not about politics. This 75^th year is not an achievement of just one leader or one political party, it’s a collective progress of all those who contributed to making India what it is today – the good and the bad.

Today, the song, “Bharat ka rehne wallah hoon” sounds unreal and outdated in the new India; let’s keep the song, “yeh jo desh hai mera, swadesh hai mera” alive in our hearts.