Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Education, health and justice should be entirely free for every Indian citizen, say freedom fighters from the state. They are bitter with the current condition of the country. “During British rule, the country was enslaved but the people were free. Now, the country is free but the people are enslaved. Kaun kehta hai ki hum azad hue hain?” says Heerala Tamrakar, 92, from Balaghat.
Tamrakar, who had participated in the Quit India Movement as well as the movement for the liberation of Goa said that if corruption was one per cent during the British rule, it is 200 per cent now. “Cases drag on in courts for decades. Governments are not worried. I am unhappy with both the Central as well as the state government,” he says.
On the personal front, however, Tamrakar has no complaints. He gets Rs 30,000 per month as pension from the state government and Rs 38,480 per month from the Union Government. “It is enough for me. I have no problems,” he told Free Press. He, however, wants ‘Samman Nidhi’ (pension) and other facilities available to freedom fighters should be provided to their next generation, too. Another freedom warrior, Bhaiya Bahadur Singh, 96, from Satna is also satisfied. “I am getting around Rs 77,000 per month as pension,” he says.
However, he, too, would like his next generation to continue enjoying the facilities. “It is not only a question of money. It will give them an identity. It will be a badge of honour for them. They will be able to say with pride that they are descendents of a freedom fighter,” he says.
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Singh says that he is happy with present-day India but he also wants that education, health and justice should be free for the development of the country. Firoz Jehan, the wife of Habib Nazar, a freedom fighter who passed away in April this year at the age of 96, says that she hadn’t received any intimation from the government about her late husband’s pension. “A few days after his death, some people came to our house. They said that they were from the collectorate and handed an envelope containing Rs 5,000 in cash to me. That’s all,” she said.
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