Nostalgia and despair are still visible in equal measure among the countrys surviving freedom fighters, as the nation rises to celebrate its 61st Independence Day this Wednesday (August 15).
Chatra (Jharkhand)/Atari (Punjab), Aug.12 : Nostalgia and despair are still visible in equal measure among the country's surviving freedom fighters, as the nation rises to celebrate its 61st Independence Day this Wednesday (August 15).
Despite getting pensions from the State and the Centre, many of the veterans of India's independence struggle against the British rule, have taken up menial works to keep themselves busy or survive.
They are spending last years of their life doing jobs conspicuously different to the revolutionary roles they once played.
A resident of Chatra in Jharkhand, 90-year-old Nand Kishore Prasad, who claims to have participated in Mahatma Gandhi's non-cooperation movement in 1942, has turned a typist.
The typewriter that he once bought during an auction at the British Secretariat in Patna in 1947 for about rupees 150 (3.7 dollars), is today his best companion and earning him bread and butter. He has set up a shop inside a court in Chatra and spends the day typing documents on payment.
He says: "I type to keep myself a little occupied. My wife died two years back; I know typing skills, so I have taken up typing. It earns me around a hundred rupees a day, which is beside the rupees 17,000 per annum amount I receive from the Centre and State governments as pension."
Prasad hopes that his typewriter will successfully complete 100 years of country's independence.
In Punjab, another freedom fighter Jaswant Singh, 87, tends to his cows and his fields, his days of launching guerrilla attacks on British troops firmly behind him.
Living in Punjab' Atari District, bordering Pakistan, 87-year-old Jaswant Singh doesn't find a better job to keep him occupied.
In a voice that now sounds more docile than of a revolutionary, the 87-year-old Sikh recounts his more adventurous days of being a part of a rebellion against the British.
He said: "There existed a secret newspaper "Lal Jhanda" (Red Flag) that we would contribute to and circulate. We would operate in the cities of Govindgarh, Amritsar and Lahore (now in Pakistan). We had to be very careful. We would show no remorse on being caught."
Dhiyan Singh, 77, is another freedom fighter in a neighbouring village of Atari. He claims to have been a part of the anti-British movement in 1946, when he was 16 years of age.
Today, he enjoys a sort of celebrity status in his village but to no avail. He complains that the pension he receives from the State government is inadequate.He says that his demand is not about any payment against his services in the country's freedom struggle, it is an appeal to arrange basic support to survive.
Singh said: "We should all be able to get two square meals. Not just the rich, but the poor should also have that right. There should not be injustice in this country on that count."ANI)
ANI