Holidays in India
Dalip Singh Wasan, Advocate
India has become a country where people do not like to work, but they prefer to have holidays and on that day they like to lie and gossip and nothing more. They do not know importance of the day and if some ceremony is prescribed as per tradition, they shall formally conduct that ceremony just to show that they too followed the traditions and nothing more. The state is bound to declare these holidays before the start of the year so that different sections may file their objection and that is the reason, the number of holidays is rising and is not coming down. In addition to all these holidays as per religions available in this country, the state has to declare each Saturday and Sunday as holidays. The state has also to observe public holidays on Independence Day, on Republic Day, Diwali, Dushhera or the like. Some martyrs have been given national recognition and on those days, the state has to observe holidays.
We are a nation which is still try to achieve progress and therefore, the people should work more, but this spirit could not take its birth in India. Here the people want rest and it is on record that they had been consuming more and more time in sitting idle and conducting gossips amongst each other. Here in India the people who could get some money with them, they start engaging servants for carrying out their works and they stop working. The people who are working are considered as poor people and the people who are rich are sitting idle. And this habit is increasing and now the people in service are demanding more and more holidays so that they too could sit idle. They demand rest and that is the reason even the people who do manual work have started demanding more wages if they are asked to work overtime. The people sitting in public offices are not interested in working and they too start putting off the people coming to them and their repeated visits compel the people to pay money as bribe so that their repeated visits could be avoided. such situations might be available in the developing countries and even in developed countries.
Time has come when we should work so that we could take our country steps further. Work should be considered as worship and when hard work brings fruit, we should work hard and such a habit should be developed. Every able person should work and he should work for at least eight hours in a day. There should be public holiday on each Sunday only and the people, if they desire, should celebrate their religious days and if they want holiday, they could be allowed some number of holidays against their wishes and that number should not cross five in a year. Every one in public service should consume his earned holidays in that very year and he should not be allowed to keep those holidays pending, because the people who remain out of office for a longer period they are disconnected from the people they serve and also they forget what they had learnt while on the chair. No one should be allowed to remain out of work for more than fifteen days in one spell. The people should work and the state and all the social organizations, all the welfare agencies and all the elders should direct the younger to work and not to sit idle. An idle brain is a Devil"s workshop and this principle should be kept in mind while declaring a day as a holiday.
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