Do we love our leaders?

"At the stroke of midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, then an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to India and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity."

I don’t need to give details about who said this and when. I am sure every Independence day speech or a write-up would start with this. But my intention here is not to remember the person who said this, but why do we remember these lines only during Independence Day or Republic Day

Come August 15 or January 26, you have these long speeches about national leaders who sacrificed their lives for our independence and their importance. It is that time of the year when we always feel proud of our national leaders.

But, I have always wondered how many youngsters would be able to relate to these iconic leaders. Veteran theater personalityPoornam Viswanathan, said he choked when he was announcing about Nehru’s Independence Day speech.

Unlike Viswanathan, I fail to evoke the same feeling for our national leaders. For most of us who were born in the post independence era, freedom fighters were introduced to us in our history text books. We studied the Dandi March, Non-Cooperation movement and other movements to score those marks to pass. I am not denying the fact that many actually liked reading it, but my question is how many of us relate to those stories. History to me is just a representation of facts by the powerful. It is more difficult to practice what they said than just speaking about them. Our politicians never fail to quote them but rarely put their thoughts into practice.

Are these national leaders really valued for their contributions? Of course for a political party paying respect to them is all aboutbuilding a statue for these leaders and gain political mileage.

So who is to be blamed? Where do we start? I believe we can never relate to our national leaders and be emotionally attached to their views, simply because we haven’t undergone the trials and tribulations of these leaders. My argument here is not about questioning their sacrifices. The current generation might learn about these leaders, but beyond that will they be able to evoke the same feeling as our grand fathers had for Gandhi or Vallabhai Patel.