Where The Mind Is Without Fear
Where the mind is without fear and
the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
~
Rabindranath Tagore, 1913- Gitanjali
Eminent poet Tagore described his dream and vision about
awakened India after independence in the above few lines but in our current
scheme of things, lot is desired to be done to make this reality after 64 years
of freedom. While we are indeed making progress on different aspects of
society, much is needed to liberate our mind in our societies and in different
parts of world. How do we answer to the questions
on differentiated behavior still being meted out to sons and daughters in many
families, the way society objectify and treat women? Our societies are still
not free from some of the archaic rules and regulations coupled with lack of
education, want of basic infrastructures and poverty, pushing the growth back
by quite a few decades. As citizens of a free country and today’s world, we are forced to live under a constant threat and continuous fear of security and law and order.
This sense of insecurity stemming from degrading mentality of society has
restricted our daughters and womenfolk to go out and win over obstacles slowing
down our overall progress.
At the individual level, while we continue to fight for legislation, we need to reflect upon ourselves to judge our actions and decisions bereft from any kind of prejudices. Some serious
effort is needed at personal level to consider women and men as just as two
wheels – equally needed in the journey of life. There is also an immediate need
to look at how we treat our fellow people in the neighborhood or on the street
with an open mind against a value system free from all biasedness. Basic civic
sense is lacking in a good number of people and we need to get into an internal FIGHT -
Fist that is raised
In the hope to
Gain over
Heinous acts and
Threats
with none other than ourselves to mature to the next level.
