God does not change the condition of a people unless they change it themselves, so says Almighty Allah in His Last and Final Book, the Holy Qur’an, revealed about 1450 years ago as Guidance for all times to come. This day, when we the 145 crore Indians are busy in exchanging greetings and celebrating our Independence from foreign bondage, we require remembering our sacred resolve which we, individually and collectively as a nation, made when we gave ourselves a detailed written Constitution in 1949, which we specially celebrate as our Republic Day on 26 January every year.
Most of Indians are believers in God. We do not dismiss even those brethren who do not believe in God and who share with us, the believers of God, the sincerity of the resolve to uphold the spirit and sanctity of the principles resolved and stressed in the Preamble of the Constitution. The purpose of the Constitution is to promote liberty and equality among all Indians, and to evolve a fraternity of all citizens who reside in India, without discrimination of sex, caste, religion or any state or part of the country.
Please stop for a moment, put the hand on the heart and ponder for a while: are we true in our resolve and commitment or we have turned into selfish self-seekers? Are we behaving as sincere and responsible citizens or following our infamous, irresponsible political leaders? It does not make much difference to which camp they belong. Most of them are extremely selfish, narrow-minded and dishonest and you will find distance of hundreds of miles in what they say and what they do. Their one and single-minded aim and objective is to make tall claims, show heaven on palms and collect as much pelf and power as possible. These promises are made not to keep them but to ensnare, deceive and hoodwink the common man.
Most of them do not have the intent committed to the Constitution and democratic principles. None of them has been sincere in his promises or commitments whatsoever. They should well admit that what they had promised were just electoral jumlas, sentences or to use a Urdu phrase tifl-i-tasalliyan or empty words used by the simpleton to satisfy children (never meant to be implemented).
Widespread horse-trading has been the common phenomenon of our political class. I will not use, but feel constrained to use, the say that they are the worst examples of making strange bedfellows. This can be seen in the electoral outcomes in many States, especially in what happened to Trinamool Congress in West Bengal. It is evident that every party is filled with turncoats. This happens with every Indian political party when it loses or is on the verge of losing power.
Therefore, we the citizens must strengthen our moral roots, give importance to moral and ethical principles and play our part as standard-bearers of truth and justice, and join hands with people having integrity, honesty and sense of sacrifice. Only then can we make India a truly humane and democratic country. May God bless us, give us moral strength and this is not possible unless we have committed to Almighty Allah, and moral principles which are the common phenomenon of all faiths and religions.