Ashok Mahajan
The fight for Independent Bharat began with a dream of many freedom fighters to be free but the strongest of the dreamer was Mahatma Gandhi. Albert Einstein, while paying tributes to Mahatma Gandhi said, “Generations to come will scare believe that such a man ever tread the earth.”
Gandhi’s vision of freedom was democracy, which begins not with the government or with the political parties or with any one politician, but within each one of us. “I am asking you to believe, not in my ability to make the change, but in yours,” he said. Gandhi taught us to put the needs of others above our own. “Service above Self,” also became the motto of Rotary International.
On this historic day of India’s 76th Independence Day, think of freedom not as a right to do as you please, but as an opportunity to do what is right.
(A Rotarian for almost 50 years, Ashok Mahajan is a senior partner in Raj industries.)
