Think that on this day

Of the remembrance of freedom

Nothing should be free;

From the holding of an opinion

To the choice of a meal,

Our wills are in jeopardy

 

Those who were not in the fight,

Outfacing guilt and shame with

Brazen guile, today claim

Proprietorial right to proclaim

With murderous passion who

Does or does not belong to the nation.

Those whose loyalty to the flag

And the anthem remained in doubt

For disingenuous decades

Have set up shop to pronounce

What true loyalty is about.

 

But the old remember, and the

Young, befuddled by the forked

Tongues of false prophets, had

Better know as well if the fruits

Of the sacrifice of millions of

Great and small men and women

That we now encase in illiterate

Greed are to last some long spell.

In field and factory, street

And by lane, in temple, church

And mosque, how as Indians

They conjointly carried forward

The task of liberation to forge

A secular and democratic nation,

One in adversity and joyous

In diversity. It is that yield of

Freedom we celebrate, not

One language, one culture, one faith, one date.

 

And we remember the promise

That was made to spread the

Fruits of labour evenly. We

Ask that that our fat cats disgorge

What they have stolen, because

Should that promise remain cheated,

The Republic will never be truly free.

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