Independent India is just 64 and half years old but the struggle is centuries old and the heroes in the struggle are numerous. If we check with today’s new generation, the knowledge about these brave men and women is dwindling at a rapid rate.
The central and the final character of this epic struggle is well etched in public minds as everybody has milked his image to the maximum. Be it politicians or movie actors , Gandhiji is seen on every news channel , his portrait in most government offices and he is there on almost all currency notes.With terms like Gandhi-ism, Gandhi-giri flying from the mouth of street protesters and crusaders to corrupt neta’s and jailed film actors, the name Gandhi has become a brand that has been misused the most. It has become synonymous with inability to do anything on a person’s part which is totally wrong.
With all due respect Gandhi was one of the major contributors to India’s independence but there are others who have been neglected and never received their due at a national stage. Their respective states or communities may acknowledge their contribution but at a national stage the awareness is negligible. To name a few we have Sardar Vallabhai Patel,Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, Bhagat Singh, Lala Lajpat Rai, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar,Lokmanya Tilak, Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaja, Tipu sultan and so on.
With the decline of snail mail we see there is not much usage of postage stamps. Email and courier’s are taking precedence. The postage stamps earlier were one of the biggest mediums of keeping these heroes alive. Some small time TV serials or movies do keep popping here and there. But mostly they are restricted to art house audience . Look what happened to “Bose the forgotten Hero”, “Sardar”,”The legend of Bhagat Singh” . These were good movies which the audience decided to give a big miss. Seeing the audience flock to Dabangg, Ready and Wanted, boils my blood to death. Even on independence day or republic day weekends masala movies are released to which the audience pay up to watch the shit being offered. Even for Gandhiji the movie was made by a Britisher which was acknowledged world wide. Do we not have any sense of respect left for our heroes of motherland?
School history textbooks cover so little of the struggle and the role of each person. The students at this tender age look for a role model and trust me we have a real shortage of role models in the current generation. Exposing the young ones to the life in detail of these heroes might just shape their minds in the right way. Schools need to cover our history in detail rather than the French and American history which can be covered at a later stage.
The short term option is to at least have some other freedom fighters printed on our currency notes and coins. With this at least we will be exposing our people to the national heroes on a daily basis. Hope some major actor or film maker may wake up to the need of portraying at least the national character on reel. Hope some good old TV programs like the discovery of India which covered each of the heroes story in details comes up again. Time and again I feel when there was just one TV channel Doordarshan, we had the best TV programs.
risingbharat 
SRS
February 15, 2012
Well thought and written. It would be good if text books and television spent some time focusing on the heroes of our nation…we should probably have a separate subject called Indian history! As crazy or difficult as that sounds it may just do the trick…..There definitely is an “American History” in schools across the U.S.A and the citizens of that country may not much about whats outside the USA but they mostly know their history……..Also it would be great if prime time television could move some of these saas bahu dramas out of prime slots between 8 and 10 and include some educational and interesting stuff for kids! I guess one can dream… 🙂
risingbharat
February 15, 2012
Thanks Shweta. Yep definitely Indian history with lot of project work might get the parents involved too. And thus a twofold reach for the same. I guess dreaming is not a bad thing, Gives you an idea and hope 🙂
vneethasogathur
February 22, 2012
That was a good read, Thank you.. I wonder how people wear T-shirts with Amitabh Bacchan or che guevara or some insults printed on them and not quotations by our freedom fighters and their pictures printed on them..That would give a lot of publicity and remind us of their struggles… and I definitely like the concept of ‘Indian History”..:))
risingbharat
February 23, 2012
Thanks. Good suggestion on the T-Shirts
Raja
February 24, 2012
Nice read.
Bose, Tilak, Patel, ……. have been replaced by Tom Cruise, Justin Bieber, ….
N Narayanamurthy had a very valid point recently that the Indian youth have extremely poor role models today.
a PBS-type channel is also much needed in India
[‘Sardar’ has become ‘ardar’ in the tag list]
risingbharat
February 25, 2012
Very true. And thanks for pointing out the typo