14/08/2026
'An Open Letter to My Country'-Dr-Birupaksha Biswas
Disclaimer:"This letter is addressed to no government, no political party, no ideology, no institution and no individual. It is addressed to India,and, therefore, to every one of us.
My dear India,
On this Independence Day, when the Tricolour rises once again above our schools, our institutions, our homes, and, one hopes, above the smaller prejudices that too often divide us, I find myself unable to offer you merely another ceremonial tribute. Gratitude, certainly! Pride, unquestionably! Reverence, always! But patriotism, if it is to possess any moral substance at all, must occasionally have the courage to interrogate the very nation it loves. And so, with no allegiance here except to India herself, with no accusation directed at any party, government, ideology, region, religion, or individual, I ask a difficult question:India is politically independent, yes; but have we completed the far greater work of becoming truly free?
Before anything else, let us be intellectually honest. India has travelled an extraordinary distance. Our economy has expanded with formidable momentum; multidimensional poverty has declined dramatically; infrastructure has widened; digital public systems have transformed the architecture of everyday life; female participation in the workforce has improved; health expenditure by households has fallen from where it stood a decade ago; scientific institutions have carried the national flag to the lunar south polar region. These are achievements of consequence, accumulated across generations, institutions, governments, scientists, workers, taxpayers, teachers, doctors, engineers, farmers, soldiers, entrepreneurs and ordinary citizens. To deny them would be dishonest. But to use them as an excuse to stop asking harder questions would be equally dishonest.
For what, after all, is independence? Is it merely the absence of foreign rule? Is sovereignty complete when the flag changes, the anthem is ours, the Constitution is ours, and the Parliament is ours? Or must independence also mean that a child is free from inherited ignorance, that a family is free from financial devastation because somebody fell ill, that a young graduate is free from the humiliation of unemployability, that a labourer is free from preventable death, that a woman is free to inhabit public space without negotiating fear, and that a citizen is free to breathe air which does not silently shorten his life?
'Political freedom was won in 1947; human freedom must be won every morning thereafter.'
That distinction matters.
India today is among the world's great economic powers, yet the latest Human Development Report places us at 130 among 193 countries,with a Human Development Index of 0.685.Yes, the trajectory is upward; yes, millions have moved beyond multidimensional poverty; yes, our material capacities have expanded enormously. But should a civilisation of our scale, scientific talent and intellectual inheritance merely be content with improvement? Improvement is admirable; excellence must be the destination.There comes a stage in the history of a serious nation when saying, “We are doing better than before,” is no longer sufficient. The question must become, “Are we becoming the best we are capable of becoming?”
Consider education. The ASER 2024 findings show that among rural children in Standard III, only about 27.1 percent could read a Standard II level text,while roughly 33.7 percent could perform basic subtraction.Both numbers have improved markedly from 2022, and that progress must be acknowledged; nevertheless, should we celebrate attendance while comprehension remains uncertain? What exactly is the value of placing a tablet in a child's hand if we have not first placed curiosity in the child's mind? What shall artificial intelligence mean to a civilisation if foundational intelligence is inadequately nourished?
We must therefore become uncompromising about education. A school must not be an institution for recording attendance; it must be a sanctuary of cognition. A university must not merely manufacture degrees; it must manufacture questions. Examinations must cease rewarding the elegant reproduction of memorised material and begin rewarding reasoning, originality, synthesis and intellectual courage. We need children who ask “Why?”, physicians who ask “What evidence?”, scientists who ask “What if?”, engineers who ask “Why not?”, administrators who ask “How can this be done better?”, and citizens mature enough to ask difficult questions without mistaking disagreement for disloyalty.
Then there is,employment. The Periodic Labour Force Survey for 2025 placed unemployment among those aged 15 to 29 at roughly 9.9 percent,with the urban figure higher; formal vocational and technical training among young Indians remains limited. Here lies one of our greatest national contradictions. We possess one of the youngest populations on Earth; but demographic advantage is not an automatic dividend, it is merely a promissory note. If we educate without skilling, certify without training, and graduate without employability, what exactly have we accomplished?
We must restore dignity to competence. Why should a superb technician occupy a lower social pedestal than an indifferent degree holder? Why should craftsmanship be considered inferior to clerical aspiration? India will not become an industrial giant through degrees alone; it will become one when machinists, electricians, nurses, laboratory professionals, coders, farmers, mechanics, paramedics, engineers, artisans and researchers are respected according to the excellence of their work. 'In a developing civilisation, competence is not merely an economic asset; competence is patriotism!'
Now consider health. India's National Health Accounts show genuine improvement. Out of pocket expenditure as a proportion of total health expenditure has fallen substantially, from over 64 percent in 2013 to 14 to around 43 percent in 2022 to 23.That reduction matters; it represents millions of households carrying a smaller burden than before. Yet ask the harder question: should illness still have the power to rearrange an entire family's economic future? Should a father calculate the price of survival outside an intensive care unit? Should an elderly woman defer a diagnostic test because her medicines have consumed her pension? Should the probability of recovery be quietly influenced by the accident of income?
A truly advanced nation cannot judge its health system only by the magnificence of its best hospitals. It must judge itself by the distance between the finest treatment known to medical science and the poorest citizen who requires it. Medicine becomes civilisation only when excellence becomes accessible.
And what of the air?
We speak often of development, but development cannot require a child to inhale its consequences. The State of Global Air continues to identify India as carrying an enormous burden from particulate pollution. Air pollution is not an aesthetic inconvenience, nor is clean air some fashionable preoccupation of affluent societies; it is cardiology, pulmonology, oncology, neurology, obstetrics and public health compressed into one invisible emergency. The alveolus recognises no ideology; the coronary artery observes no political affiliation; particulate matter conducts no opinion poll before entering the bloodstream.
Why, then, should Indian cities not aspire to become the cleanest great cities on Earth? Why should our public transport not become an international benchmark? Why should waste segregation, sewage treatment, road discipline and urban cleanliness remain occasional campaigns rather than permanent civic reflexes? Why should cleanliness require surveillance at all? A mature civilisation does not behave well because somebody is watching; it behaves well because disorder becomes culturally embarrassing.
Then do come science, perhaps the arena in which India has most spectacularly demonstrated its latent power. Chandrayaan 3 did more than place a spacecraft near the lunar south polar region; it demolished an alibi. It showed us what meticulous institutions, disciplined engineering, patience, scientific imagination and national continuity can accomplish. Once a nation has reached the Moon, mediocrity becomes considerably more difficult to excuse on Earth.
And yet India still spends less than one percent of GDP on research and development, with the latest estimates placing gross research expenditure at around 0.84 percent of GDP. Improvement has occurred; investment has risen; private participation is growing. But can a nation that seeks leadership in biotechnology, quantum science, artificial intelligence, semiconductor engineering, oncology, aerospace, clean energy and advanced materials remain satisfied with that level of research intensity?
I do not want our brightest scientists merely to be told to remain in India out of patriotism. Build laboratories worthy of their genius!. Give young researchers time, funding, equipment, intellectual independence and institutional protection from mediocrity. Let an Indian scientist stay because the most exciting experiment in the world can be performed here. Let the century's defining drug be discovered here; let the finest semiconductor architecture be conceived here; let Nobel calibre science emerge from Indian universities not as an exception to the system, but as a consequence of it.
We must stop asking whether India can compete with the developed world.That question,countrymen, has become too small.So,the better question is: 'When shall the developed world begin competing with India?'.
I do not seek an India eternally measuring herself against Europe or America. I seek something far more ambitious. Where Western nations possess better universities, let us study them. Where they possess better hospitals, transport systems, research ecosystems, manufacturing processes or civic infrastructure, let us learn without insecurity. Learning from another civilisation is not subservience; refusing to learn out of wounded vanity is merely foolishness. Equally, where those societies have failed, fractured or grown complacent, we must possess the intelligence not to import their mistakes along with their technologies.
Ultimately, I do not want India to “surpass the West” as though civilisation were a school examination and somebody must stand first.
I want India to make the comparison irrelevant.
Let the world's most efficient public hospital be Indian. Let the cleanest metropolis be Indian. Let the safest railway network be Indian. Let the university producing the century's most consequential ideas be Indian. Let the finest public school system be Indian. Let Indian laboratories define global standards; let Indian manufacturing represent precision rather than compromise; let an Indian passport evoke respect not merely because of geopolitical power, but because the citizen carrying it comes from a civilisation associated with scholarship, discipline, reliability, innovation and dignity.
Imagine that reversal for a moment! Imagine a European minister asking, “How did India solve this?” Imagine American universities studying Indian public education models. Imagine Asian cities replicating Indian waste management. Imagine global hospitals adopting protocols developed in our district health systems. Imagine the phrase "Indian standard”becoming synonymous not with affordability alone, but with uncompromising quality.
Why should that be impossible?Who has authorised us to think small?
Justice, too, requires our attention. India's district and subordinate courts continue to carry more than five crore pending cases, with millions remaining unresolved for many years. There are genuine structural complexities: population, vacancies, procedure, litigation volume, infrastructure and appeals all matter. Yet from the citizen's perspective, one truth remains brutally simple: a right that takes a decade to establish begins to feel theoretical. Justice must be deliberate, certainly; but must it become archaeological?
A mature republic must make contracts dependable, procedures intelligible, courts accessible and dispute resolution sufficiently swift that an ordinary citizen does not fear the process almost as much as the injustice itself. Due process must never be sacrificed for speed; but delay must never be mistaken for due process.
And then we arrive at dignity, the statistic beneath all statistics.
Only recently, the National Human Rights Commission took cognizance of reports concerning workers exposed to toxic gases while cleaning a manhole in Faridabad, resulting in death and injury. Elsewhere, reports emerged of schoolchildren in Madhya Pradesh negotiating exposed check dam pillars to cross a river to reach school.
Stop there.Read those images together.
We have landed near the Moon's southern polar region; somewhere within the same republic, a child may still be compelled to negotiate a dangerous river merely to reach a classroom.
Does this diminish Chandrayaan? Absolutely not!It makes Chandrayaan more important.Because,Chandrayaan proves that incapacity is no longer a credible explanation.
If India can navigate a spacecraft across hundreds of thousands of kilometres of space, India can build a safe passage for a child across a river.
That is the standard I want us to impose upon ourselves.
"Not anger.Not self contempt.Not political accusation."
Standards!
The most corrosive sentence in India is perhaps not an abusive slogan; it is the quiet shrug, “This is how things happen here.”
No!That sentence must die.
Why should trains be late because “this is India”? Why should litter be tolerated because “people are like that”? Why should a public office be inefficient because “the system works this way”? Why should research be mediocre, roads chaotic, queues disorderly, files delayed, safety equipment ignored, professional ethics diluted, or public property vandalised merely because generations before us tolerated these things?
Independence must eventually mean 'freedom from our excuses.'
And perhaps this is where patriotism itself requires refinement. Patriotism is not shouting the nation's name more loudly than another citizen. Patriotism is returning a library book on time because it belongs to the public. Patriotism is refusing to litter when nobody is watching. Patriotism is paying taxes honestly, driving responsibly, respecting a nurse, protecting a sanitation worker, arriving punctually, preserving a tree, refusing a bribe, rejecting plagiarism, maintaining a public toilet, questioning bad science, reporting professional negligence, helping an injured stranger and performing one's ordinary duty exceptionally well.
A nation is not constructed only in Parliament, laboratories or military headquarters. It is constructed at traffic signals, hospital counters, classrooms, railway platforms, municipal offices, research benches, court corridors and dining tables.
"Civilisation is the sum of what citizens do when applause is absent."
Therefore I refuse the fashionable simplicity of asking, “Who is responsible?”
'All,the all of us are.'
Not equally, certainly; responsibility follows power, position and circumstance. But citizenship itself carries responsibility. Governments must govern; institutions must perform; professionals must uphold standards; businesses must act ethically; teachers must teach; doctors must heal; scientists must question; journalists must verify; courts must adjudicate; citizens must behave like citizens. Democracy becomes immature when everybody demands accountability from the person above while negotiating exemptions for himself.
My dear India, I do not want a louder nationalism.
'I want a harder nationalism.'
A nationalism that demands punctuality from me before demanding efficiency from the state. A nationalism that makes me ashamed to dirty my own street. A nationalism that refuses intellectual dishonesty even when dishonesty benefits my side. A nationalism that measures success by childhood nutrition, scientific patents, research quality, clean water, court efficiency, road safety, literacy, life expectancy, manufacturing precision and the dignity accorded to the weakest worker.
What would happen if, for the next twenty five years, we became almost unreasonable about standards?
What if every school demanded comprehension? Every hospital demanded safety? Every university demanded research? Every municipality demanded cleanliness? Every profession demanded ethics? Every citizen demanded discipline first from himself?
Would that not be a second freedom struggle?
Not against Britain.Not against any party.Not against any religion.Not against any region.
Against mediocrity, indifference, preventable suffering, intellectual laziness, civic disorder and the terrible national addiction to “good enough.”
Because, India,good enough is no longer good enough for you!
You are too large for mediocrity, too ancient for pettiness, too young demographically for resignation, too scientifically gifted for imitation, too culturally rich for insecurity, and too consequential to humanity to remain merely a promising nation.
We inherited independence in 1947.Now,we must earn greatness.
And greatness, please remember, is not declared at a podium. It is measured quietly, relentlessly, almost mercilessly: in the reading ability of an eight year old; in the oxygen saturation of an elderly patient; in the safety harness of a sanitation worker; in the laboratory notebook of a doctoral student; in the integrity of an examination; in the cleanliness of a railway station; in the time required to obtain justice; in the conduct of a motorist at an empty red light.
That is where republics reveal themselves.
Tonight, when I look upon the Tricolour, I shall do so with enormous pride; but I shall not flatter my country. Flattery is for insecure rulers and fragile egos, not for great civilisations. A country one truly loves deserves something far more difficult than praise.
It deserves expectation.
I expect India to become healthier, cleaner, safer, wiser, more scientific, more disciplined and more humane. I expect our hospitals to rival the finest on Earth; our universities to become destinations rather than departure lounges; our scientists to lead rather than follow; our industries to invent rather than reproduce; our cities to function rather than merely expand; our children to reason rather than memorise; our citizens to disagree without hatred; and our public life to become increasingly intolerant of incompetence.
Is that too much to ask? Of India?
Never!
The civilisation that gave the world philosophies of extraordinary depth, mathematics of historic consequence, literature of astonishing beauty, traditions of inquiry, argument and metaphysics, and, in modern times, institutions capable of sending machines beyond Earth, has no intellectual permission to settle for mediocrity.
So, is India still independent?
"Yes."
Unequivocally, magnificently, constitutionally, historically, irreversibly, yes!
But our independence remains unfinished wherever ignorance dictates destiny, wherever illness produces destitution, wherever labour loses dignity, wherever pollution shortens childhood, wherever talent is suffocated by inadequate opportunity, wherever justice arrives after hope has died, and wherever mediocrity survives because good people have learned to tolerate it.
Perhaps that is the task history has left for us.Our forefathers liberated the territory.We must now liberate its possibilities.
Let the generation of 1947 be remembered for winning freedom; let ours someday be remembered for proving ourselves worthy of it.
Not by proclaiming that India is great.But by working, quietly, stubbornly, scientifically, ethically, relentlessly, until the evidence becomes so overwhelming that proclamation is unnecessary.
For the highest form of patriotism is not to tell the world that your country is extraordinary.
"It is to build a country before which the world eventually has no alternative but to agree."
Happy Independence Day, India!
My reverence to your past; my faith in your future; and, above all, my uncompromising demand upon your present.
'Jai Hind.'
