It's time to free the Independence Day celebrations | Economic Times

For many years, as a child I would often ask my mother what she did on India’s first Independence Day in 1947 as a politically aware teenager. She spoke of listening to Prime Minister Nehru’s speech on the radio with an unforgettable feeling of joy, excitement and hope. For her generation, that saw the last decades of the Raj and the freedom movement, it was indeed a watershed moment— one that she relived vividly for the rest of her days every August 15.But considering we were recently reminded that 72% of Indians today were not even born the last time India won a medal in hockey (1980) it is not hard to imagine that the emotions Ma felt for an event that happened in 1947 would not be echoed by too many now. For her it was a lived experience; for most Indians today like me, born well after Independence, it is, quite literally, history, more so as this year marks 75th anniversary of that day.Americans began celebrating Independence Day well before the British were finally ousted from their nation, so official events were and are secondary. Neighbourhood festivities are the norm, rather than “solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty” and “parades and pomp” which were envisioned as becoming the hallmark of July 4 celebrations by their second President John Adams, going by what he wrote in a letter to his wife Abigail on July 3, 1776.But our Independence Day festivities began more as people’s events rather than official ones, judging by the accounts and photographs of the time. One of the most evocative photos shows hundreds of ordinary people (all male) lined up behind a loose line of policemen on Raisina Hill, all facing Parliament House. Clearly the joy of ousting colonial rulers from the imposing sandstone pile on the hilltop was an exhilarating — and liberating — experience.Our first PM, Jawaharlal Nehru, however, adroitly shifted the focus to Red Fort, hoisting the tricolour there a day later and giving a speech on August 16. He chose that same iconic (and now telegenic) spot for his speech on India’s second Independence Day on August 15, 1948, thereby starting a tradition that has endured till now. There is nothing to mark Independence Day on Raisina Hill now unlike that first one in 1947.Perhaps it was a wise decision as governments around the world are chary of allowing crowds of ‘aam janta’ too close to official buildings; Red Fort is just a monument, making it a safer alternative security-wise. Even then, almost all the guests are officials and their families, except for a few hundred schoolkids. Live telecasts allow more Indians to participate; but how many do so anymore?During the tenures of most Indian PMs, a significant number of people who lived through the freedom struggle and remembered the heady day Nehru made his ‘Tryst with Destiny’ speech were still around. As decades went by Indians still had relatives and friends who were from that era and represented a continuum of the emotions of that time; official speeches by PMs and state functionaries around the country were just a secondary aspect of August 15.For the past seven years we have the first PM of India actually born after Independence. Even his two immediate predecessors as PMs of the 21st century were 14 and 23 years old in 1947. Eventually there will be no Indians around to present a direct connect to Independence Day; the challenge then will be to preserve the relevance of August 15 for individual Indians. Retaining it as a solemn official event with little public participation will not do.The 75th anniversary of Independence may be the best time to begin a process of change to ‘free’ the event — make it a people’s celebration too, while remaining a time for incumbent PMs to deliver what can be described as a ‘state of the Union address’, to borrow an American term, from Red Fort. While pandemic concerns may hinder any big public festivities this year, at least the idea of more inclusive celebrations can be mooted for the future.August 15 could be a day when some official spaces are made open to the public, a day when people are encouraged to have neighbourhood celebrations with camaraderie and shared food, and a day when literally Indians are encouraged to wear their flag on their sleeves without inviting official censure. That way, generations of Indians will continue to connect with the joy and freedom that August 15, 1947 meant for my mother and her contemporaries.