FORGET NOT THEY WHO REMEMBERED YOU ON THE SCAFFOLD

The revolutionaries played such a seminal role in liberating our motherland with Netaji their climactic hero, yet, they have been sadly neglected by the chroniclers of the history of our freedom movement. It is such a loss to our emerging generations that they are denied access to the true history of their motherland and have to remain content with cooked-up narrative which bears no resemblance to actual fact. No wonder patriotism has been steadily on the decline in our nation and corruption ever on the rise.

The Right to Information Act has been long passed by Parliament but there are serious limitations imposed on the exercise of the Right citing security concerns of national importance. Hence, some of the hidden files in the custody of the Government of India and those of the States are not subject to public scrutiny and herein lies the difficulty in unearthing the truth about our freedom movement. It is wishful thinking that overnight things will change, that the Government of India will suddenly change stance and become Christ-like in penitence of its past perfidies or Buddha-like in wisdom and modify its stated position in this regard for there are political considerations at stake, personal reputations to protect and preserve and alliances with comrades-in-corruption to maintain. The exigencies of self-interest and political compulsions will not allow any government at the Centre or at the State level to come clean in this matter and the shelving of the real historical facts will continue for the foreseeable future at least.

Does this mean that we, the citizens of this land, must sit quiet and do nothing to extricate the truth? Of course not. We must strive evermore to exert mass pressure on the government and must build up a movement free of political attachments to achieve our objective. Only then may we regard ourselves worthy successors to our great ancestors who bled their way to achieve freedom for our beloved motherland. Vande Mataram! Jai Hind!