I have been fortunate enough to have been brought up in a country which is the abode of diversity on earth. A country which boasts of 16 official languages , innumerable religions and a rich heritage.
Its ironical that it was only after living in another continent, in a country which is about 5000 miles away from my birth place did i actually realize about our diverse culture.But then circumstances are a wonderful teacher. Forced to fend for my own self I found solace and help among my own countrymen.
From the punjabis who helped me to find a suitable accomodation and then fed me for 1 month, to the tamils who became my badminton partners, to the oriyas and gujaratis who invited me to their parties I was lucky to interact with indians from different linguistic backgrounds. All of them helped me to survive the loneliness which accompanies an individual who is working alone in an alien country on a project n is using the opportunity to overcome his fears and answer the questions of his peers.
All of them helped me n there are a lot of similarities between us . Each of the communities likes to speak in its own regional language rather than in hindi. People from every region whom i met felt that the central government had discriminated against their states in the allocation of resources and funds. From the missing lines in oriya which were not spoken as part of the song "Mile sur mera tumhara" at the independence day celebrations in High Commission,Dar Es Salaam to the complaints of the wrong policies be it the Lack of support for LTTE or the 84 sikh riots all of us have become too narrow minded and are carrying the burden of our past.
I guess these are very small undercurrent thoughts which we all have but when I ponder at the current political situation back home I believe the mushrooming of regional parties like TRS, Shiv sena ,Akali Dal, DMK, BSP,SP ,RJD are all a result of these narrow minded beliefs which we all indians have. Today we have reached the position wherein a Lau can force the central government to allocate 1500 crores for Kosi floods but for the floods in Orissa which are of the same scale a very meagre amount is released. What this implies is that are small undercurrent thoughts are getting translated into discriminatory policies.
Ultimately if we keep on progressing in the same direction more Naxal secessionist movements will crop up and every state will start insisting on more autonomy . We will have more Article 370's . My opinion is far fetched but then its better to understand the implications of our actions now rather than allow India to become another Balkanised region.
I hope that we start identifying ourselves by our country rather than by our states.
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If i rem my History lectures from Class 8, a Nation had 3 things - A common language, a defined national boundary, and higly nationalistic feelings. We never had the common language, nationalism was always smaller than our kings and kingdoms (which improved thanx to the British).. n d defined boundary, has been redefined by our neighbours, and even UN has differing maps than what we try to propagate. So in essence, we are not really a nation. Still, smhw, we hv been BOUND together (possibly by force).. for 60 yrs.. n thats an achievement..n d concerns raised by u.. r valid.. but in London, all pakis, bangladeshi, sri lankans n Indians r Desis.. who dont fight as much as we do :).. internationalism seems the final goal, tho nationalism is a must b4 dat..
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