As we celebrate 75 years of Independence, it is high time to introspect and contemplate the gains and losses we made in past this much of years. We got Independence after a long struggle on August 15, 1947. On this day, a new Independent state came into existence. On January 26, 1950, the Constitution of India was implemented, which begins with the Preamble.
The Preamble indicates the mission and vision of the Constitution. The Preamble begins with “We the People of India” followed by “Sovereignty, Justice, Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity”. All of these goals are the collective responsibility of every citizen of this nation. Here sovereignty and fraternity are related to the rights of the nation and rest with the rights of the citizens. Unfortunately, the concept of nation has not received appropriate attention within the existing constitutional scheme.
In fact, in the entire Constitution, the term nation has hardly been mentioned in one or two places, only under the chapter of Fundamental Duties. Article 1 of the Constitution begins with – India i.e. Bharat shall be a union of States. For the majority of the people, there is no difference between India and Bharat, but in reality, there is a big difference. India is a political entity comprising territories and citizens but Bharat is one of the most ancient cultural civilizations. India is defined according to the modern theories of political science, but the meaning of Bahrat remained undiscussed in post-Independent India.
Bharat is one of those rarest nations whose geography naturally defines its territory. According to Puranas, from the Himalayan range in the north to the Indian Ocean in the south, the entire region was the land of Bharat. Before 1857, the area of Bharat was somewhere around 1 crore sq km which is now hardly 33 lakh sq km. Bharat Mata means a living entity having all the rights of a natural person. Like any other person, Bharat Mata has the right to dignity, sovereignty, and integrity and it is the responsibility of every Bhartiya to protect her rights even at the cost of their own life.
Bharat Mata has some distinguished rights – like the right to territorial sovereignty, ecological sovereignty, cultural sovereignty, and spiritual sovereignty. Here the meaning of territorial sovereignty is any attempt to alter the territorial boundaries should be discouraged and defended by the people of this country to the best of their ability. This right of the motherland is non-compromisable. Our land has been dived 24 times in the last 2500 years, which proves that we could not successfully defend the territorial sovereignty of this country. The idea of ecological sovereignty is deeply ingrained in Indian society in connivance with spiritual sovereignty. The Bhartiya culture is fundamentally eco-centric. Bhartiya darshan always believed in the deep alliance of human beings with nature and considered itself as the trustee, and not the owner of the same. The philosophy of non-duality removes the difference among the different creations of the supreme divine whether inanimate or animate.
Through the spiritual richness of this nation, we kept our ecology balanced for thousands of years and also provided a safe ecosystem to all components of nature, including the five elements of the universe or ‘Panch Mahabhoots’, i.e., Ether, Air, Fire, Water, and Earth. Bhartiya culture does not believe in the exploitation of nature but under the influence of globalization, we are compromising the cultural and ecological sovereignty of this nation and leaving behind our richest cultural and spiritual heritage, which is the constant source of our existence at all odds. As we mark the 76th Independence Day, we need to analyze how much we are concerned about our nation’s rights. There are several good reasons for celebrations. We are now the fifth largest economy in the world, there is a considerable hike in per capita income and we are among the most powerful nations in the world. But there is more to inspect, think and analyze. It is a reality that our total forest cover is now only 21.71 percent though it should at least be 33 percent of the total area. In the coming years, we are going to be the most populated country leaving behind China, which is going to cause immense pressure on our natural resources. We are the third most polluted country in the world. We are under serious ecological threat. Around 10,000 species of plants and a few hundred animal species are under severe threat due to the violation of the ecological sovereignty of the nation. Air pollution was responsible for 16.7 lakh deaths in India in 2019, or 17.8 percent of all deaths in the country that year.
