The Freedom Paradox – A Poem

We won our freedom at a great cost. Yet today, all the ideas that define India are being compromised in a fight for power.

We won our freedom at a great cost. Yet today, all the ideas that define India are being compromised in a fight for power.

To breathe the air of communal vituperation and toxic slogans,
Is this is the reason we got free?

To bury the voices of women and children with guns and verbal venom,
Is this the reason we got free?

To remove vibrant hues one by one and splash the nation in just one,
Is this the reason we got free?

To witness love and faith being replaced by mistrust and insecurity,
Is this the reason we got free?

To snatch candles from the silent mourners and ignite fires of hatred and division,
Is this the reason we got free?

To see the currents of power spread farther than the ripples of humanity,
Is this the reason we got free?

To see the India we won together suffocate in the hands of its own people,
Is this the reason we got free?

Ratnal Gupta is 23, MBA, 'an almost but not quite'.

Featured image: Wikipedia Commons

This article went live on February twenty-first, two thousand twenty, at zero minutes past twelve at night.

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