When a cancelled I-Day speech becomes a lesson in the meaning of freedom

When an Independence Day speech in a school is cancelled, students of all ages ask: Why? 5 min readAug 16, 2026 12:31 PM IST First published on: Aug 16, 2026 at 12:30 PM IST Come to think of it, what does an Independence Day speech really amount to? How many of us remember what we heard in childhood, in speeches made at school or on television? When one thinks of children growing restless in the summer heat, squirming in classrooms and auditoriums, one is reminded of D H Lawrence’s “Last lesson of the Afternoon”. As an educator, one at times wonders what it is all for. And yet, by means of a word here, a phrase there, absorbed osmotically from family, teachers, thought leaders, friends, children are shaped, their worldview is woven from their experiences and memories. A republic is moulded. So, when an Independence Day speech in a school is cancelled, students of all ages ask: Why? When the safety of children becomes a concern on August 14, the institution acts in the only manner that it can. It is an unexceptionable fact that nothing is more important than the well-being of children. They understand this too. Parents of all hues of beliefs and opinions are troubled about the future but stand in support. However, in buses, outside the school as they walk past you, in homes through the evening, comes the next question. Why is our security an issue? By then they have heard the news from friends, read the news reports. They also conduct Google searches on who was supposed to have delivered the speech and discussed it with friends. They have learnt that it had to be cancelled due to some individuals unrelated to their institution objecting to the guest’s presence. By this time, they know more about the matter and are exchanging views with peers. There are intense debates. They have witnessed something for the first time in their lives and their curiosity — jigyasa — is aroused, certainly more by the incident than by what the speech itself may have generated. Something momentous has happened. In the morning, unaware of these facts, they have sung patriotic songs, watched the flag being hoisted, sung the national anthem with palpable verve along with their friends, teachers and parents and participated in a significant collective ritual. Student leaders have spoken movingly and intuitively of the freedom struggle. Anecdotally and artistically, they revive the luminous values of liberty — jigyasa, samvad, karuna, kartavya. These are moments you wish time would stop and the magic of this experience when our children become our teachers would last forever. Perhaps, prophetically, they have also spoken of the need to overcome the wolves of fear. And bits and pieces of the previous morning would come back to them when our Prime Minister cautions us from the Red Fort to remain vigilant against the fear-mongers in our midst. Would they then not realise why the speech had to be cancelled? And when they are being reassured that fear is the enemy of truth, how are they to process what happened? How is this “why” to be addressed? When William Blake, the poet-prophet, said, “without contraries, there is no progression”, he was speaking of Western society and the hatred of opposites that stood in the way of its greatness. In his poem “The Poison Tree”, part of the syllabus in our schools, Blake writes: I was angry with my friend; I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow. Arguably, this fear of opposites is a colonial legacy, heightened by the experience of modernity and how different cultures have responded to it. This has manifested itself more in political discourse since Independence than in the organic rhythms of ordinary life. Sant Kabir Das spoke of the prisons of duality and the need to transcend them through experience, much like Blake. Silencing what is perceived to be contrary (an illusion or a necessity, according to the mystic poets) plants poison trees in our hearts. This postco