As the nation gets ready to celebrate the 60th year of independence, some freedom fighters feel their dream of making the nation great has been shattered.
LUCKNOW: As the nation gets ready to celebrate the 60th year of independence, some freedom fighters are a dejected a lot for they feel their dream of making the nation great has been shattered.
Gandhi and 'swaraj' have given way to mafia and criminal elements rule the country, many of the freedom fighters felt.
Corruption has penentrated deep into the system...One takes pledge not to accept bribe but no one swears not to give bribe, says Man Singh Azad (90), who had gone to jail during the Quit India movement in 1942.
Azad, who said he had been asociated with Mahatma Gandhi, told PTI here that "politicians' are responsible for all the ills facing the country".
On how successful freedom has been, Azad says that this freedom is meaningless'.
Dwelling into the past, he recalls how hundreds of freedom fighters had faced mounted British forces during the Quit India movement while demonstrating near Lucknow University.
Azad, a Dalit, said that he never felt "untouchable" while working with Chandrabhanu Gupta and Kamalapati Tripathi, former chief inisters of Uttar Pradesh.
But caste dominates today's politics like no other thing', he said. "There was a dream to create a society based on equality but casteism has left it divided," he adds.
He also attacks 'liberal economic policies and rising influence of English'. Before freedom, there was only one British company but now there are several such companies', he said.
Azad said farmers and labourers had been cheated by politicians.
Ram Autar Agarwal, who had taken part in the All India Freedom Fighters meet in New Delhi on August nine, also echoes similar sentiment.
Agarwal (83) feels that freedom had been hijacked by criminals, mafia and corrupt elements'. "The youth will have to come forward and fight another battle for attaining 'real' freedom," he said.
Disillusioned with the prevailing politics and politicians, Agarwal said the British had taken many wrong steps. But they did it for their country. "Our leaders are doing wrongs things without bothering for the country," he said.
Krishna Kumar Awasthi (84), who had been to jail during the freedom struggle and a member of the Revolutionary Socialist Party, says that corruption, violence and falsehood prevails in the country'.
"Social harmony is non-existent and the society is divided along caste lines...Even the Brahmins are now in the queue for becoming backwards," he said.
UP Freedom Fighters Organisation convenor Rajesh Pandey said that Gandhi's dream of making the villages self sufficient lay shattered now. "Migration from villages hasincreased," he added.
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