PRAYER FOR INDIA

Any form of religious extremism or violence across communities must be rejected, not just in well-spun words but with concrete action

- Rajdeep Sardesai

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; Where Knowledge is free

Where the world has not been broken into fragments by narrow domestic walls..

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake (Rabindranath Tagore)

More than a century after Tagore wrote his immortal lines, it is perhaps time to revisit the great poet's vision of a new and awakened India. Inspired by the Nobel laureate, here is a prayer for India in 2026. An India which doesn’t look at the present and future through a rear-view mirror. Where our MPs don’t spend hours debating who cut which stanza from Vande Mataram in the 1980s or what Jawaharlal Nehru did or didn’t do in the 1950s or what atrocities Aurangzeb committed in the seventeenth century but instead focus on what is our present leadership doing to build a better India for tomorrow.

An India where votes aren’t garnered by appealing to caste and religious divisions but on real issues of governance. Where it really shouldn’t matter which temple existed under which mosque in which century, where history is not reduced to a WhatsApp University course. Where the focus shouldn't be on building more places of worship but instead on how many quality schools and hospitals are being built.

An India where groups like the Bajrang Dal who are seen vandalizing Christmas events and assaulting Muslims under the guise of ‘love jihad’ are given exemplary punishment. And if they still don’t fall in line, these selfstyled Hindu Rakshak groups must be banned. Any form of religious extremism or violence across communities must be rejected, not just in well-spun words but with concrete action.