- Who has become free?
- From whose forehead
has slavery’s stain been removed
- My heart still pains
of oppression
- Mother India’s face is
still sad…
- Who has become free?
This poem was
written by Ali Sardar Jafri a few years after independence. However, these
lines even more accurately describe the current
situation in our country. Who has become free, is indeed the real question.
This country now belongs to the rich; development is now only for them.
Giant-sized malls, ultra-modern cars, express highways, luxury items imported
from the four corners of the world, five-star hospitals….and, on the other
hand, the few crumbs given to the poor after independence are also being
snatched away.
In the sweet-sounding but deceptive name of Globalisation, huge and voracious Multinational Corporations (MNCs) are being invited into the country. To exploit the resources of our country, make super-profits, and take the profits back to their country. Even our laws are being changed, to facilitate this plunder! In the name of Privatisation, public sector corporations and, very soon, public sector banks and insurance companies, built out of the savings and by the sweat and toil of the common people, are being handed over at throwaway prices to these MNCs and their Indian collaborators – the big private Indian corporations. Even Indian agriculture, on which 60% of the Indian people still depend for their livelihoods, is being deliberately destroyed – so that it can be taken over by giant agribusiness corporations. The consequence: thousands of farmers are committing suicides, over 60 crore people are slowly being driven out from the villages into city slums. Basic necessities, like education, health, transportation, electricity, even drinking water, are being privatized and transformed into instruments for naked profiteering. Electricity prices are being hiked, bus fares are rising, price controls on essential medicines are being eliminated and govt. hospitals are being privatized, college fees have gone through the roof, the public distribution system created to check speculation in prices of foodgrains and other essential commodities is on its way to being scrapped altogether, the first steps have been taken to hand over drinking water supplies in cities to giant western water multinationals who will then hike water rates five-ten-fifteen times. Tens of thousands of small businesses have downed their shutters. There are simply no decent jobs for the youth, and if one uses the standards of the developed countries, probably nearly half the population is unemployed or underemployed. The imperialists want to control what we eat, drink, see, think, read. And so along with MNC capital, imperialist culture is also flowing in. All Central and State Governments are implementing these policies. Today, there is no need for the foreigners to rule over us directly. By seizing control of our country’s economic pulse, they have brought back colonialism in a new form.