RECLAIMING SOUL

AS WE CELEBRATE AZADI KA AMRIT MAHOTSAV, IT IS IMPORTANT FOR US TO REVISIT THE WHOLE IDEA OF THE BHARATIYA FREEDOM MOVEMENT FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF SWA (“OUR SELFHOOD”), WHICH HAS MUCH TO INSPIRE OUR PEOPLE AND WILL, HOPEFULLY, UNFOLD ITS TRUE MEANING TO THE PEOPLE OF OUR TIMES. THIS IS A GREAT OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL OF US TO REVISIT, REFINE AND REINVENT OUR LOST ‘COLLECTIVE TRUTH’ ABOUT THE WHOLE NARRATIVE OF FREEDOM STRUGGLE, TO EXPLORE AND ACKNOWLEDGE THE UNSUNG HEROES OF THE FREEDOM STRUGGLE AS WELL AS TO CHANGE OUR PERSPECTIVES TO ANALYSE THE UNFOLDING TRUTHS ABOUT OUR PAST AND COLLECTIVE IDENTITY

- J NANDAKUMAR

The British ruled Bharat for about two hundred years.It got freedom from the British on August 15, 1947. The exploitation of the Bharatiya people and our economy was just one part of it, the cultural and intellectual colonisation was the larger context of it. It is a fact that the Bharatiya people never accepted foreign domination without resistance. Since the fifteenth century itself, there had been a number of popular protests in different parts of Bharat by diverse sections of society against the expansion of colonial rule. Their protests may look localised and isolated in spread but definitely national in its content.

During this long struggle for Independence our people fought for the Idea of Swa (selfhood); they believed that there would be no point in getting rid of the British without getting rid of the centralised, exploitative, and violent system of governance and the economics of greed it pursued. Sri Aurobindo and Mahatma Gandhi led this socio-philosophical construction with the idea of Sarvodaya, Swarāj, and Swadeshi. The first concept in this trinity was Sarvodaya, the uplift of all; this includes the care of the Earth-of animals, forests, rivers, and land. The second is Swaraj - the self-government. Swaraj works to bring about a social transformation through a small-scale, decentralised, self-organised, and self-directed participatory structure of governance. It also implies self transformation, self-discipline, and self restraint. Thus, Swaraj is a moral, ethical, ecological, and spiritual concept and method of governance.