On August 15 this year, India will complete her 60th year of freedom from the clutches of the British rule. Many feel that with the passing of years, memories of the struggle and the leaders behind it are slowly diminishing from the minds of the younger generation.

“Which is why the dire need to instill a sense of patriotism,” says Alaesheebam V Srinivas, the creative head of Namma India@60. “A way in which we, as Indians, can take a moment to appreciate the freedom we enjoy.”

Namma India@60 is an initiative by Srinivas and N Ramesh, with the main purpose of celebrating the significance of the day. “We are not going to restrict it to the one day when we stand in front of the national flag, salute and leave. It’s not a token celebration; we want to inculcate the history of the struggle and help pass on the history to the next generation,” says Srinivas.

“And we noticed that children, especially from the underprivileged sections, who are deprived of learning, who show great enthusiasm when we talk about freedom fighters. Choosing them to be part of Namma India was a result of ‘Au-to-zu for U’, a personality enhancement initiative that we conduct at various schools.

“At these sessions, we realised that children have the thirst for knowledge but aren’t being educated about our history completely for various reasons,” shares Ramesh, President of Namma India@60.

About 300 schools in the City are participating in the initiative which started conducting programmes on June 17. “So have the energy levels and enthusiasm,” says Srinivas, adding, “It’s gratifying when these children seem to like what they are doing and that interest leads them to learn more. The crowd at the competitions held every Sunday is a reward in itself.”

Apart from the aim of instilling patriotism, the idea is also to raise questions such as ‘Are India and its citizens really free?’, ‘Why is freedom curtailed?’ among others.

“This is a pilot project for freedom and if it’s successful, it could set an example for other parts of the country and encourage them to implement it as well.

“It’s also the responsibility of the Education Department to present the past to future citizens,” says Ramesh.

KEEPING THE SPIRIT ALIVE    
Main programmes under Namma India:

Participating children take A PJ Abdul Kalam’s seven-point oath or pledge everyday.

Remember one freedom fighter everyday.

Students of Class V to VII are given the responsibility to gather information about freedom fighters of their choice and put together a brief history about them. At the end of this month, this information will be compiled into a book with children taking credit for it!

Students of Class VII to X are given an opportunity to visualise India in the year 2022 and express it in the medium of their choice. It could even be a documentary or a collage. This will be sent to the Education Department where it will be stored carefully till 2022. That year, it will be opened to make a comparison of the vision of a student then and the actual scenario of India that year.

The final agenda is the ‘Unity Thoran’, a human chain concept wherein children will put together on paper their respective thoughts on India and form a chain with them. This will be put up in a public place on August 15 and will be part of the grand finale for the day. Srinivas hopes the thoran will enter the Guiness Book of World record as it has not been attempted before.