Freedom of Living
Today India completed 74 years of its independence!
What happened 74 years ago?
74 years ago, we, meaning our country India, was under the rule of the British. On 15th Aug. 1947, India got its independence.
What is independence? Who are the British? Why did they come to India at all?
Let’s assume a guest comes to your house and requests your father,
“Sir, I have come here to sell my goods. My house is very far away. Will you please give me someplace to stay? I’ll leave immediately once all the goods are sold.”
After gaining access to your house, he slowly occupies the whole house and brings his family, relatives, and friends to stay with him. Slowly, he pushes you and your family out of your house and says you will be allowed to stay in your own house only if you paid some tax?
This is exactly what the British did to Indians. They occupied India and asked Indians to pay taxes abnormally and toyed with Indians for 200 years.
Now, who are the British?
British are the people who lived in a country called Great Britain or England in Europe. Britain is in the temperate zone. It has such cold weather that only limited crops like wheat, potato, rye, turnips were grown. Mostly, people depended on hunting and trading.
Trade is exchanging what they have in return for what they haven’t. The merchants of Europe travelled across seas, cold deserts, harsh lands, and mountains to reach India. They had plenty of fish, lead, tin, and unstitched wool and woollen clothes. These were traded for cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, saffron, black pepper, cotton, cotton clothes, Indigo, silk clothes etc.
The traders used to pass through Constantinople to reach India for several hundreds of years. One day, the sultan of Constantinople closed its doors to traders. This prohibition forced the traders to search for a new route.
Vasco da Gama, a Portuguese sailor, succeeded in finding an alternate route to India through the Indian Ocean and started trading in India. Dutch, French and British then followed him.
Thus, the British who landed for trading involved themselves in politics and reign India for the next 200 years.
The British were not the first foreigners to rule India. Before, there were Mughals, Sultans, Turks, Khiljis, Kushans, Huns, and others who ruled over India. However, there is a difference between the earlier rulers of India and the British. Other rulers came to India, settled down, married Indian women, accepted Indian culture, and turned into Indians themselves. In contrast, the British only wanted to plunder Indian wealth and had no intention of being a part of it.
Indians were gullible and dutiful people finding God in every living and non-living thing. Farmer’s land, a clay lump on the potter’s wheel, Carpenter’s tools, weaver’s yarn were worshipped as gods and revered. Farmers did not grow crops the way they wanted. There was a certain discipline in it. Although the spices made them rich, they cultivated them sparingly along with the much-needed food crops. One does not eat only spices. They would rotate the crops and give a break to the earth in between. During this free period, they would indulge in weaving, printing, and other works. Hence, the variations in the yield never used to affect them.
The farmers were the first to be adversely affected by the British. They levied two kinds of tax on farmers, one on the yield and another on the land. The farmers were forced to pay the tax for the land, even when there was no harvest. Worse, the British added tax to things like salt.
It is not that earlier kings did not collect any tax. While the earlier Kings used the collected tax for the public benefit, the British sent it to England.
Whenever the farmers could not pay the tax, the British would lend a loan for high-interest rates and finally acquire the land and force the formers to cultivate Indigo and opium again and again. This over-cultivation of the same crops, again and again, was one of the main reasons that led to severe famine in India. Millions of people lost their lives because of starvation and diseases.
In this condition, our national leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru, Balagangadhar Tilak, Chandrashekar Azad fought against the British and got us our freedom. Now, we have the freedom to grow the crops we intend to; we have the freedom to choose our own leader, voice our needs, and fight for our rights, which wasn’t there 74 years ago.
15th Aug is the day which brought us the freedom of living. Hence it is a day of celebration!
Happy Independence Day!