Freedom fighter in Bihar leads a desolate life

PARIYA VILLAGE - As people in India will celebrate the 61st Republic Day of the country on Tuesday, an octogenarian freedom fighter Bindeshwari Prasad Singh leads a desolate life in Bihar.

It disheartens to notice the plight of a freedom fighter like Bindeshwari Prasad Singh who is compelled to live a dejected life after his son refused to take care of him.

Today, Singh lives with his paralysed wife in a lacklustre house in Pariya village of the district. He says that despite the fact that his son and daughter-in-law live in the neighbourhood, they don’t bother to take care of them.

Singh and his wife today survive on the paltry government pension. But his son and daughter-in-law pester him to part even with that sum, claims his wife. It is his married daughters who are the only hope for this elderly couple in desperate times.

86-year-old Singh on the Republic Day-eve recounted how he participated the freedom struggle against the British rule at the tender age of 18 in 1942.

“I was 18 years old then. We torched a Railway station at Kastha near Gaya and told the officials there that when governor comes, tell him that his rule is nearing end, his rule has weakened and he should immediately leave otherwise there would be bloodshed. I was imprisoned for two and half years,” said Prasad.

India won independence from British rule in 1947 after years of struggle.

On January 26, 1950, the Indian Constitution came into force, and this day is celebrated as Republic Day.

But Bindeshwari Prasad Singh is too weak to complain about his plight. Will the Republic look after him and many others like him? By Surya Pratap Singh(ANI)