Widening the frontiers of Freedom

Purnima Sriram

India is celebrating its 67th Independence Day with patriotic fervour across the country today. Even as the country is reeling under myriad economic, social and political predicaments, youngsters in the country are upbeat. Hyderabad is no different. Indian Independence means a lot to them. But for them, the historic national movement that emancipated India from the two centuries of colonial tyranny could not achieve the true independence of the country. They strongly feel we need to be free of many more evils – corruption, illiteracy, unemployment, women abuse, child labour, so on and so forth.

And they struggle to achieve the complete independence. There are distinct groups of young people, toiling day in and day out to create better India. One such group, Youth for Better India (YBI), is a movement for corruption-free India. The State coordinator for the group, Raja Akula, says, “YBI has been formed to gather the youth who dream of a developed India to a single platform and for collectively working towards their common dream. It is a known fact that the youth has got tremendous power and if that can be used in the right direction, it can definitely change the picture of Indian society that we see today! YBI is an independent, non-partisan platform for all patriotic students and youth, like-minded individuals and other organisations. YBI is for college and university students and youth below 25 years of age.”

For organisational convenience, YBI has a federal structure and invitation-based membership. “YBI’s aim is to bring change and revolution, channelise youth energy, build a big youth movement, realise this generation’s dream of having a corruption-free India, give a platform for youth for their personal development and also for country’s development,” informs Raja.

According to Raja, they go to various colleges to create awareness among students and youth about citizenship. “We educate students about governance and its reforms (political, electoral and economic), anti-corruption (building movements to fight against corruption: RTI, public participation walks, awareness about anti-corruption Institutions), youth empowerment, platform for youth (identify & improve skills and talents in the youth and provide a platform to showcase their skills and talents for their career development and nation building), environmental awareness (create awareness about environment and protect planet earth), identify and take up youth issues and try to solve their problems,” says the young activist who is fighting for freedom from corruption.

“We also find tools to fight corruption like the Lokpal Bill and RTI, training and building new leaders for the new generation (conducting workshops on citizenship and leadership), campaigns (walks, rallies) against-corruption, conducting RTI sessions, voting registration in educational institutions, partnering with managements and Election Commission, career guidance, online publications, movie clubs and information clubs, conduct 1-day trainings all over A.P and 3-day Training in Hyderabad,” he adds.

Creative Service society (CSS) is another youth organisation which works for the betterment of the country. It is an NGO established in Nandyal town of Kurnool district, with registration number 5/2008. Md Azharrudin, secretary, CSS, says, “CSS is a platform for the youth who are willing to serve the nation. We are having volunteers in each and every college in Nandyal viz inter, degree, engineering & post graduation. Mother Theresa & Swami Vivekananda are our inspiration.”

“As we all know how India is suffering from problems like corruption, illiteracy and poverty, we started this organisation to change the country. Our main services are based on education, corruption, blood donations, environment, traditional Indian culture, helping the poor and the needy,” he shares.

According to Azharuddin, India has a weak literacy rate in the world. “We strongly believe that development of education is the development of the nation. Hence we are creating awareness about education in slums. We conduct talent tests for government school students. We join street children into schools. We supply text and notebooks to poor students. We are working on road widening in Nandyal as the present roads were constructed to meet the needs of 1990s. Students, employees, and officials are facing traffic problems and losing out their precious time and also lives,” he shares with concern.

He says there are many people who die due to scarcity of blood in times of emergency. “So, we conduct blood donation camps and donate blood through our volunteers for needy. Environment nowadays is facing severe threat of pollution and the life span is decreasing gradually. We are not able to breathe even fresh air. So, we started a plantation campaign to create awareness among the public about environmental hazards and donate them many plants. We have serious concern over hunger and our goal is to keep every person eat three times a day. Simply we work on roti aur kapada. We donate food in times of droughts and floods,” he says.

The secretary of CSS says that of all the countries in the world, India has rich culture and tradition. “My team and I are very proud of it. But many of us don’t feel so. We are not against the western tradition but we create awareness on Indian tradition. We organise cultural programmes, sports meets to refresh youth. We donated many dresses and sports kits to orphans, blind people and adopted leprosy colony. We also work on ban of plastic”, he adds.