THE INDIA I STILL BELIEVE IN

Bharat Mata Ki Jai.

Long Live Bharat.

To call a country Mother

is itself a blessing

a mother who, at eighty,

still carries nearly 147 crore children

beneath her tired sari.

Some are starving, some are sick,

some sleeping beneath bridges,

while towers pierce the sky;

some carrying books

heavier than their dreams,

some carrying dreams

heavier than their homes;

Young minds are addicted,

old minds are corrupted;

She still feeds all with her bruised palm

Her rivers are wounded,

her forests are waning,

her air is gasping,

her soil is exhausted

yet she still feeds us.

People have stolen her resources

and gently called it development.

Her beauty has faded,

her strength has weakened,

her boundaries have hardened,

yet

she survives.

Tell me,

how does a mother still function in an ICU

when every monitor is screaming?

while her children outside

argue over

who gets to call themselves her heir.

Perhaps because

she is more than a body.

She is memory.

She is civilisation.

She is sacrifice.

She is the unfinished dream

of millions who died for freedom.

And look at her children—

fighting brother against brother,

language against language.

One giant mother,

Made into a smaller dwarf mothers,

And now they have crowned her

not with gold,

but with a strange clown’s crown:

DIGITAL.

A crown of screens,

where truth and lies

wear the same face,

where hatred travels

faster than prayer.

Is there anything more serious than an ICU?

Yes.

An ICU of the conscience.

Yet I still believe in her.

Because somewhere a farmer plants,

a teacher teaches,

a child reads,

a doctor heals,

a soldier stands,

a stranger feeds another stranger.

That is where

her resurrection begins.

Not in slogans.

Not in hashtags.

Not in speeches.

In us.

We do not need merely

to worship Mother India.

We need to heal her.

And one day,

when her children stop fighting over her,

when knowledge finds wisdom,

when technology serves humanity,

when development protects nature,

when hunger loses its inheritance

Mother will rise.

She will step out of the ICU,

remove the digital crown,

breathe deeply,

and look at her children.

And perhaps she will whisper:

“I never stopped believing in you.”

And we will answer:

“Mother,

we never stopped believing in you.”

Bharat Mata Ki Jai.

Long Live Bharat.

Long Live the India I still believe in.