The Blood Spilled on the Ground

Today we Indians are free,
No longer to the British we are bound,
But this day makes us remember,
The brave ones’ blood which is spilled on the ground

Netaji led an army to bring the British down,
Jhansi ki Rani fought till her last breath,
Gandhiji sent a silent warning to the enemies,
And they did see that as a threat

Bhagat Singh didn’t care about his own life,
He just wanted to get rid of India’s shackle,
Sardar Vallabhai Patel used a strategic mind against the opposing,
And they found that very hard to tackle

Sarojini Naidu focused on feminism during those times,
And she managed to bring about a change,
Rani Velu Nachiyar went straight into battle,
As anti-feminists, British found this very strange

The Congress came into existence,
One of the most prominent moments in the fight,
This soon split into two groups with different motives,
Each one rising with its own might

One side we had the radicals,
They were leaders driven with rage,
They wanted Indian practices back in their lives,
They worked on overthrowing,

The other side we had our moderates,
They were leaders too, but they supported peace,
They believed if they could oppose peacefully,
They can drive British out with ease

The British tried divide and conquer,
But it would take more than that to drive Indians apart,
They split Bangladesh from India,
But they still remained one country in their heart

It was a rough 200 years or so,
But what do we learn from this?
It’s that our leaders didn’t give up on hope,
They fought so we could peacefully exist

15 August is more than a date,
Or a holiday excuse,
It’s the country’s day to honor some people,
To or to not honor their sacrifice, that is something we have to choose

Honoring their sacrifice- what does it actually mean?
Does it just mean remembering their days?
No, not at all, honoring is much more,
It means we have to keep drawing on what they began to trace

Today corruption in India is at its worst,
And it is increasing hour by hour,
If our freedom fighters visited us today,
They would ask us, “Is this the country that was once ours?”

Instead of just raising a flag on this day,
We have to make their sacrifice worth,
We need to keep their hopes up high,
We need to keep the fire burning in their hearth

If our history books taught us anything,
It’s to learn from the mistakes we made in the past,
And was saving our country a mistake?
This nation, which is now growing very fast?

I hope not, fellow Indians,
Just think, when you see corruption in haste,
When the freedom fighters spilled their blood on to the ground,
Was 200 years of struggle all a waste?

Thank you.

Krithika Karthikeyan
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