I = India

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Let's start with our national pledge.

India is my country.
All Indians are my brothers and sisters.
I love my country and I am proud of its rich and varied heritage.
I shall always strive to be worthy of it.
I shall give my parents, teachers and all elders respect and treat everyone with courtesy.
To my country and my people, I pledge my devotion.
In their well-being and prosperity alone, lies my happiness.

When was the last time we took the national pledge? Hhhhmmmm ????

Let's ask ourselves other easier question.

Before reading this post, how many of us did actually know what is our national pledge ?

I took this pledge today after almost 15 years, so I thought of reminding you all about it. I remember my primary school days when I used to take this pledge everyday in school. It was an everyday routine to take this pledge after morning prayer in school. I never gave importance to it, because it was just everyday routine. Neither did our teachers explain the meaning and importance of this pledge nor we ever tried to find out. After primary school, I didn't take this pledge till today. I have understood its importance now and I think, it is not too late for us to understand importance and, more importantly implement it in our life. This is the only way to make our country great and then we can say proudly "Mera Bharat Mahan".

If we will see our national pledge closely, we will find these words "I", "My", "Country" which are repeated many times. What do these words want to say? If I have to explain our national pledge in one sentence, I would say "I am my country". Yes my brothers and sisters, I = India. This is what "The World Teacher" is explaining to us for many centuries.

India's problem is that we have kept only two words "I" and "My" in our life and almost throw this word "Country" out from our life. I said almost, but not completely, because when it comes to cricket, we spend our whole day watching cricket. Indian cricket team plays almost 30-40 one day cricket matches in a year, so actually speaking we spend one month watching and discussing cricket, but when it comes to country we can't spend few hours to vote and it is only 3 times in 5 years (municipality election, assembly election and parliamentary election). We don't have to spend more than 2 hours to vote, so if we count, we only have to spend 6 hours in 5 years. It is very sad in democracy that we are not voting for ourselves.

Why don't we understand that I = India? I have asked this question to myself first and I think my answer most likely applies to everyone of us. For us "I" means "Me", "My Family", "My Home", "My Career" and "I" does not mean "My Country". To verify how much my answer matches with others, I have asked few indirect questions to my colleagues and friends and I was absolutely right. Let's be true to ourselves and ask this questions to ourselves. What are our future plans? Our answers may be differ by content, but not by meaning. Some of our future plans are as below:

• Staying in rented flat. Planning to buy own home.
• Having 2-wheeler. Planning to buy 4-wheeler.
• Having children. Planning for their education.
• Currently assistant manager. Planning for promotion.
• Going to retire one day. Planning for pension.
• What more? We are insuring everything with insurance.

What about our country's insurance?

When I asked this question to myself first, honestly speaking "Country" was not on my list, but now it is the only on my list. We are concerned about our family, but isn't this motherland part of our family. If our mother has gave us birth, this country has brought up everyone of us with land, water, air, food. We are too much concerned about own future, but can we imagine our future without existence of our country? isn't our country's future our own future?

Let's see one example. We are working very hard for our career and to get promotion, but we didn't go to vote in election and our finance minister is not able to save our country in recession and our company has declared bankruptcy. So where is our future now? We are still not convinced, because few of us still haven't lost our jobs. Let's see one more live example. It is very sad example, but we have to look at it. Many businessmen died in 26/11 attack on Taj Mahal and Trident in Mumbai. They had own house, own 4-wheeler, retirement plans almost everything and they were still thriving for better future, but what happened? If our country is facing terrorist threat every day, what kind of future are we planning for us? We are still not convinced, because we didn't die in that attack. Problem with we Indians is that we don't wake up unless and until something horrible will not happen to us personally. We need to understand that I = India. If we will work for India's future, our future will be taken care of.

All my findings are based on teaching of "The World Teacher". Sacred books of all religions teach us about brotherhood, but do we actually treat each other as brothers or sisters? As far as I know, all prayers explains that we are children of same God.

History has taught us the same lesions that we were conquered by foreign forces because we were not united. Alexander (Greek Emperor) has first tried to conquer India in 200 B.C. and he also won some part of India. We were only saved because of Chanakya's effort to unite India, but we again lost to foreign forces in 1200 A.D. Time has come again and history may repeat itself, if we are not united again. It's time to understand that I = India. Don't blame government, because we are government. Let's learn more from "The World Teacher" and ask ourselves what we can do for our country.

We may feel motivated and want to become patriotic after reading this post and we will have some quick plans in our mind, but tomorrow morning we will be same again. So how to keep ourselves motivated everyday? It is as simple as our school days. Take national pledge everyday. Only difference is that we should understand its importance and implement it in our life now.

"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

Jai Bharat!

You can read the same post at jitegabharat.com too.