I was sifting through the Indian Express India Empowered edition of today and I could not hold back the joy of being an Indian. It was carrying some wonderful essays on the Indians who were a part of the original Constituent Assembly which formulated and promulgated the Constitution of India. Hence 57 years ago on this day The Sovereign, Socialist, Democratic, Secular Republic of India came into being – Bharat Ganarajya.
Chaudhary Ranvir Singh Hooda (now 92), the father of the present chief minister of Harayana Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Kusumkant Jain (who was just 28 and the youngest member of the group then) are the only 2 surviving legends of the original 299 members of the Constituent Assembly which was formed to draft the constitution of our country. On Thursday January 24th 1950, the assembly met for one last time to sign the Constitution of this country. Rajendra Prasad was elected the first president of India; Jana Gana Mana was made the national anthem; Vande Mataram the national song. Ranvir Singhji recalls “We signed our names, sang the national anthem and Vande Mataram. We knew we had empowered all our forthcoming generations, till the end of time. Veteran freedom fighters decided to celebrate it as grandly as Diwali or Id”. There would be millions like me who would spend this day just like any other but just to let them know that our forefathers fought for the freedom of this nation single handedly so that we could breath freely under the blue skies without fear.
Another riveting aspect of this day was the idea of nation building. I had some problem with my Internet and called up Hathway to inquire about the same. I was anxious that they might be having an off today but I was lucky. The problem got resolved and I could work smoothly. This small act made me sit up and think of the millions across this country, who would be putting their sweat and blood today and toiling hard to give us our republic of tomorrow. The India of our dreams :-)
