India is free but is it truly Independent?

Today is the 71^st Independence Day of India and we celebrate the joy of patriotism and freedom on this day. But when we say We are Independent and Free we should be careful enough to understand the importance and gravity of these two words INDEPENDENCE AND FREEDOM

Definitely India as a country is free but the question still prevails: Are we really Independent?

We must truly appreciate the Independence day speech of PM Narendra Modi, who mentions his dreams to move towards an era from “Chalta hai” attitude to “Badalna Hai” attitude. For this change to be implemented, firstly citizens of India should know the status quo that is prevalent. Everyone knows and celebrates the fact that India is free and independent and we have all the required rights to exercise and live freely. But my dear friends, do we really know what is Independence from a national perspective?

I am not an economist, nor I am any expert to comment on anything but to my knowledge, a nation achieves independence in various aspects and not just the political aspect. Definitely we are politically free and acting as a free nation since 70 years but where do we stand in the league of Independence when we consider other major aspects? Are we not still suffering from poverty? Aren’t we still scratching our heads on unemployment?

We got the brilliant brains, as we always say when we boast about our country’s intellectual wealth but then where are those brains when it comes to 130 crore population. We might be in the race giving cut to cut competition to many countries like US and China in the IMF’s GDP projected rankings but are we really a safe, strong and wealthy country that PM wants?

If not, then why? Do we have any answers to it? Yes!

To establish the New India concept as rightly said by PM Modi, we should strive ahead from the Chalta Hai attitude to the Badalna Hai-The change attitude. But what should this change be like? Should it be just a central or state government strategy? Or should it be in our hearts?

To back it with some fact, let us target the cream education fields which almost every parent want their child to be in: Engineering, Management, Medical.

According to FY’15 records, every year India produces 1.4 million engineers across the country. Just a simple question to all those dear friends: Are you satisfied with your degree? Did you get what you wanted? You might say yes to boast your abilities but not less than 50% of the engineering fellows from common state universities knows how happy they are?

Dear engineering friends, in whatsoever field you are say IT, Computer Science or Electronics or say mechanical etc just try to use google and get to know the share of business of India in world for whatever industry you are in. Some percentages might be high where as others might be low, but the harsh reality of today is that many of our fellow fresh engineering graduates are unemployed, or poorly paid.

Now the next question is whom do you blame for this situation? The university which could not manage to give you placements? Or your grades? Or the country’s economic set up which failed to produce a decent job for you? Surely. One of these might be your answer but hold on for a while to get on to the real answer.

Let us come to the next hot educational field: Management

I am an MBA. So what? Are you satisfied? You even do not know Why You did MBA but let us leave that part for now. The question again is are you satisfied? Again most of you though being an IIM graduate actually know the answer. You might be satisfied but to your heart not fully satisfied.

Whom do we think should care for making us reach at our desired satisfaction levels? The management institute whom we think is the job placement producing machine? Or the economy which happen to slowdown when it was your turn to get placed? Or some other macroeconomic factors? Or at the end will you also blame to the country itself?

And the similar such questions to each field and here we start analyzing the questions to drive down to a refined answer. We always follow a Top down approach when it comes to put blame for the circumstances we are in.

We start from the top and start blaming it. We blame the university, the economy and finally the Indian nation at the end. But ideally we are very wrong in this approach.

Why don’t we try the Bottom Up Approach. According to it whosoever is at the bottom is the most responsible for the situation and it gradually passes to the top. Now if we follow this process of blame, we are the first ones to be blamed. We cannot say that we are 100% responsible for everything but when will that day come when we ourselves will start taking responsibility of our work. We are not even ready to take our part of responsibility then how can we blame others at the top? How can we blame the country and its economy?

We definitely need to change the set up. But who will change it? Our nation? NO! It is “Us” who will change. The change should start within you. Let us stop putting blames on peers, on sorroundings on the nation and let US BE THE NATION.

We are the torch bearers of our nation and if we will start blaming the central powers then the same trend will pass on. Our future generations will blame us and so on. Let us move from this Top Down Blame game to the Bottom Up Approach. Let us be the change.

We are blessed to be born in a country which is indirectly the pool of opportunities. Let us take an example of changing our ideologies and thinking.

1. India is the largest importer of arms and ammunitions. There can be two ways to view this statement. First, it is not so good from the point of view of economy and defence strategy. Second, and the bottom up approach: Why can’t we untap the field of defence. Why cannot we unlock the field of defence to start our own business?
2. India is highly technologically dependent and if the US and the US economy stops its outsourcing business, we are at the precarious condition. Again the two approaches. First, the Top Down: I am an IT employee and I lost the job because of economy. Second, the Bottom Up: Till now I was dependent and lagged the other skills to generate IT business and untap the field of automation but now I have an opportunity and I can build that potential.
3. China is posing biggest trouble in manufacturing being one of the cheapest and largest producer of goods. Aspect_TopDown: India is too much dependent on other economy. Second approach, bottom up, let us take the priviledge of Make In India and Start Up India to start our own business to help the economy.

We just had only  three examples but the sole point is to begin with us. Forget all the approaches, forget all the ideologies but at the end we bear the responsibility of our nation. The nation is our pride and we are responsible to maintain that pride. India is definitely free since 15 August, 1947 but India is still not fully independent in any which aspects  like defence, technology, manufacturing etc. But it is now our responsibility to make India Truly independent and not let the history repeat. We should be independent in trade and we should have a fair share of business in world economy and that is not the country’s responsibility but it is our own responsibility. PM Modi mentioned that India is has the largest youth and expects a lot from us. We, being the youth of India should make ourselves responsible enough to remove the stigmas from the economy and each field and to create new opportunity  to move towards the New India.

We, most of us are a common man of India but let us take a vow to make ourselves a special citizen of India who wil stop blaming the country and move ahead to eradicate problems from economy. Let us take pride of our field whichever we are in, engineering and tech, management, medical etc and build potential to bring newer opportunity. Let us emerge from job seekers to job givers. Let us move towards a New India.

Jay Hind!