What do you think Republic Day is? Is it just a holiday? Is it the day B.R. Ambedkar gave the constitution to Gandhi or is it the day Indira Gandhi died? Well, these are some of the answers we got from Gen Z people when Asian Voice asked them what Republic Day is.
In a survey of 30 individuals aged 20 to 30 conducted ahead of the 77th Republic Day, the results were nothing short of a comedic tragedy. While ten respondents held a proper grasp of the day's significance, the remaining twenty displayed a level of ignorance that suggests the future of our nation might need a GPS just to find the history section of a library.
It is truly a marvel of the modern age that, while we plan for a high-tech Viksit Bharat, our youth are busy rewriting the timeline of the subcontinent. One respondent confidently claimed the day marks the death of Indira Gandhi, presumably confusing January with October. Another suggested it was the moment Dr B.R. Ambedkar presented the Constitution to Mahatma Gandhi, a heart-warming scene that sadly ignores the fact that Gandhi had been dead for two years by the time the document was adopted. If this is the generation destined to lead India’s development, one can only hope they are better at coding than they are at basic chronology.
In reality, Republic Day celebrates the date in 1950 when the Constitution of India officially came into effect, turning a former British colony into a sovereign, secular, and democratic republic. It was the culmination of nearly three years of tireless drafting by the Constituent Assembly, ensuring that the struggles of the freedom movement were etched into law. Regardless of where you live, whether in London or Leicester, knowing your history is not a choice, it is a responsibility. Gen Z must wake up to the fact that the rights they enjoy today were bought with the blood and intellect of those who actually knew what day it was.