India celebrates the 75th Republic Day on January 26. On this day, 75 years ago, in 1950, the Constitution pledged equality, regardless of gender, caste, religion, class, community or language. It is a fitting time to revisit this poem by Rabindranath Tagore on his vision of a truly liberated India.

Freedom

Freedom from fear is the freedom

I claim for you my motherland!

Freedom from the burden of the ages, bending your head,

breaking your back, blinding your eyes to the beckoning

call of the future;

Freedom from the shackles of slumber wherewith

you fasten yourself in night’s stillness,

mistrusting the star that speaks of truth’s adventurous paths;

Freedom from the anarchy of destiny

whose sails are weakly yielded to the blind uncertain winds,

and the helm to a hand ever rigid and cold as death.

Freedom from the insult of dwelling in a puppet’s world,

where movements are started through brainless wires,

repeated through mindless habits,

where figures wait with patience and obedience for the

master of show,

to be stirred into a mimicry of life.

– Rabindranath Tagore