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‘Freedom From Fear is the Freedom I Claim for You my Motherland!’

Newsclick Team |
As India celebrates the 75th Republic Day on January 26, the date when the Constitution pledged equality, regardless of gender, caste, religion, class, community or language, in 1950, Newsclick revisits this poem by Rabindranath Tagore on his vision of a truly liberated India.
constitution

The Constitution's vision is of a united and plural India. (File photo)

FREEDOM

 

Freedom from fear is the freedom
I claim for you my motherland!

 

Freedom from the burden of the ages, bending your head,
breaking your back, blinding your eyes to the beckoning
call of the future;

Freedom from the shackles of slumber wherewith
you fasten yourself in night's stillness,
mistrusting the star that speaks of truth's adventurous paths;

Freedom from the anarchy of destiny
whose sails are weakly yielded to the blind uncertain winds,
and the helm to a hand ever rigid and cold as death.

Freedom from the insult of dwelling in a puppet's world,
where movements are started through brainless wires,
repeated through mindless habits,
where figures wait with patience and obedience for the
master of show,
to be stirred into a mimicry of life.

 

--- Rabindranath Tagore

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