CAN I BE A PROUD INDIAN?

YES. Impossible though it may seem, one Indian schoolboy shows us the way. May this not be a voice in the wilderness but a loud and insistent call for us to do our duty as Indians — our duty as Christians
RAYLYNNE D'SA

While we surf the Internet and chat in cyber space, 65% of India remains illiterate. As we bite into a pizza or guzzle a coke, 250 million Indians suffer from malnutrition and hunger. As we play video games, swim and join' vacation camps we have in India 40 million child workers deprived of these very pleasures and 6 million mentally handicapped children who cannot enjoy the same. .We are a Democratic India of the great divide, between rich and poor, haves and havenots, lucky and unlucky. Alas! Ours is a country divided by the pure luck and destiny of birth.

Who says we cannot excel? Already we are the 8th most corrupt country in the world. We have one fourth of the world's blind and one third of the world's lepers. And in the year 2000 we should bag the gold for AIDS. We have the latest information technology, yet thousands of our villages have no electricity. Pepsis and Colas flood our market even as our rural millions trek miles for a bucketful of potable water. Though we have the latest medical and scientific technology, disease and epidemics cannot be eradicated.

Nehruji's dream has turned into a nightmare! In their naked rush for power and pelf, our politicians have shed all cloaks of decency, morality and commitment. They have criminalised politics with money, muscle and madness. And we, the people, wallow helplessly in this shameless corruption. Our complacence has harmed the nation more than their dishonesty!

Want to buy kerosene? Pay in black. See the latest movie? Get a pirated cassette. Doing an exam? Buy the question paper. Failed the exam? Buy a degree. Degree no use? Bribe and get the job.

Corruption like a maggot creeps into the very marrow of our lives. It begets injustice, discrimination, frustration and crime. It rapes it's own mother even as it spawns inefficiency and decadence.It gives more power to the powerful and more wealth to the wealthy. It makes the weak, weaker and the* poor, poorer. Alas! It comes to kill.

India, my mother, is young — just 50. But, she is dying slowly, horribly. She cries out to us, 'Help me! Help me, my sons and daughters. I am fractured by poverty, bleeding from the wounds of ecological rape and riddled with the cancerous growth of corruption. Help me, save me! Don't you hear my cry??"

Are we her children going to respond or just be passive* lookers-on? Wake up! Wake up, my brothers and sisters. This next millennium is ours. We midnight's grandchildren can truly make India free. But, what can we do, you may ask. Much, I say, much. Strong leaders and a committed ideology must emerge from amongst us. Even as youngsters we can conscientise our elders, don't you think?

Let us stop communal disharmony and class divides. Control material mania and ethical decadence. Decry child labour and gender discrimination. Donate our eyes, share our excess and use our education to spread awareness. Let us use food, water and natural resources prudently. Let us stop this rape of our Mother Earth! Let us scream out for control. Control over population, poverty and prejudice.

Unless we wake up and speak out, ours will be a generation of dumb dithering baboons, who deserve these grave injustices we have inherited. To you I say, 'Isn't it better to light one candle than to curse the darkness?'

But, I am all alone! I am only one. Remember! It took just one Jesus to bring salvation, just one Mahatma to advocate Ahimsa, just one Mother Teresa to make the world cry! So surely one me is enough to begin with? Along the way many more will be inspired to join in. Then in strength as proud Indians we can lift our voices and sing: वंदे मातरम माँ तुझे सलाम माँ तुझे सलाम वंदे मातरम

This was a speech given by Nikhit D'Sa, son of the author, of St. Joseph's High School, Juhu, Mumbai and was awarded 1st prize both at the Interschool Elocution Competition and by the International Studies and Service Exchange of India.