here is something i felt for some time now. the sad part of this country is that while we hate our own fellow countrymen, based on their religion, region or caste, we simply wipe the shoes of the white man with our shirts. this is true to this day. india has not been freed yet. the fact that we feel proud only when our children call us, “mummy and daddy”, we feel successful when we get high-paid jobs as high-tech coolies in the hi-tech industry which serves the interests of the “DEVELOPED” (Read white man’s) countries, the fact that we think we are “BACKWARD” when we wear dhoties, when we live in mud houses, when our profession is not some “fancy” “suited booted job” but when we are farmers…a friend of mine has once said, “if the british had not come, we would still be wearing dhoti, pyjamas’. this then is the state of our self-respect.
in the padayatra against the uranium mining in nalgonda district in year 2006, young boys sang very poignant songs about the loss of livelihoods for the weavers and potters etc. but they all “fancy” wearing “Jeans”…
this then is the dichotomy of our land. we are all living a lie.
what the british have stolen from us is not so much our wealth, or natural resources…but our “SELF-RESPECT’. we have lost faith in all that is Indian, because it is not “Scientific”…be it natural farming, be it folk medicine, folk arts or culture…or wearing indian clothes.
They have destroyed this country by destroying our self-respect and our self-reliance.

No point in speaking about 1857, as long as our scholars feel happy only when they are recognised in America or Europe. No point in speaking about freedom movements, when we as people continue to bend over backwards to give red carpet welcome to Bill Gates, while we destroy the homes of our farmers to give away their lands for ‘Corporations”; in the name of a “Development” which is alien to this land. No point in speaking about freedom, when the greatest dream of a young Indian is to prefer to sweep the streets of New york or London, rather than go back to his village or town and try to change things there.

Saraswati Kavula
filmmaker