According to me, swaraj means a belief.

Swaraj is my gallant hope, the

expectation I carry from myself. Swaraj is a celebration of different colors that
can change the minutest of details that shape my life. Swaraj is my blessing.
Swaraj takes birth inside the core of my soul. Swaraj is the reflection of the life
I have so far lived, the life I am living and the life that awaits for me. Swaraj is
the human I am. Swaraj is nothing but me.

Literally, swaraj means self-government or independence for India. Self-

governance is not the only connotation Swaraj carries; if it had been so, Swaraj
would have remained just another careworn political propaganda. Thankfully
this did not happen. It surpassed the usual norms of a political agenda and
transitioned into an avant-garde concept.

Since the time of our country's independence, swaraj has been the principal
force that pierced into every heart, ignited the urge to eliminate the habit of
being controlled, of being a sufferer. The questionable and inhumane practices
of our country’s oppressors made us look timid and vulnerable. Swaraj started
as a speculation but soon turned into an inferno capable of burning down the
entire nexus of ruthless dictatorship. It came as a storm that saved tortured,
innocent and beleaguered souls. The very reason for all these revolutionary
changes that stamp our country’s intense history is Swaraj. It has never been a
‘fight for swaraj’ but a ‘delayed realization of Swaraj’. Its realization is still
being delayed.

Sadly, Indians unveiled their welcoming nature and resolute hospitality to the
most tyrannous group of people. Sadly, everything Indians did to them
backfired. Sadly, our education didn’t get wings to fly across the skies. They
were rather left to rust with time. But, illiterates should not be confused with
halfwits. They were equally capable as the educated ones, if not more than
them. Swaraj had in itself an element of longevity like it was alive and
breathing. Swaraj soon became a feeling. Millions of hearts beat together by
dint of swaraj. A tune murmured by all Indians. A tune still murmured by us.
The only difference is the setting, time and people. The core remains the
same─ rigid, on the verge of being impenetrable.
There are some choices that we make consciously, fully aware of the
consequences and with a fair idea of its impact on our humility. Between these
choices our life swings. These choices are of a modern day swaraj. The
catacombs of all kinds of discrimination have trapped human beings. Money
scalds down families into ashes of regret. Immature and obscene desires
consume the conscious of a majority of people. Responsibilities are
abandoned. Lives are being lived for the sake of gloating about something
which is achieved by deceit. An individual has started losing his power of
developing independent thoughts and opinions. Politics has leaked through the
walls of law, order, and governance and seeped into everyday life. Swaraj is
being asphyxiated. And we are making the wrong choices. The choices which
slaughter swaraj. But, swaraj will endure as long as there is a speck of hope for
it to survive. All these years─ right from its initiation─ swaraj has been
surviving. It always has. It always will.

Humans and swaraj move hand to hand. My swaraj is my family’s swaraj, my

religion’s swaraj, and my country’s swaraj. To understand the true meaning of
swaraj, it is necessary to understand what all swaraj does not mean. It doesn't
mean jeopardizing the life of others to attain pleasure. It does not mean
trading self-respect in the name of helplessness. It definitely doesn’t mean the
fuming of arrogance on the ground of possessing something that most people
don’t.

Swaraj is to cognizance that once a person enters into the human civilization,
he strives ahead by hurting none and winning the hearts of all. That he
sacrifices not for the sake of sacrificing but for the sake of loving. This
realization will bear the fruit of an enhanced future where it will be possible to
find humans rejoicing their own existence.

Swaraj is everything, everything else isn’t.

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