Indeed, India is an interesting country - different religions, different language, different ethnicity, different culture, different culinary tastes, etc. As you pass from one state to another, you'll find a marked change in the language, cultural activities and culinary taste. As a tourist, or an academician, it'll really be delightful experience. I mean you get to experience different cultures and more importantly, different foods after spending a bit on the road. But are we a really united country? Today, it's more like a diversity in unity.
Insurgency and separatism in J&K and NER, naxalites in east and central India, regionalism in west and south India, the list on goes on. Then, there's the religious divide, which fortunately, is not a big problem now. But what I'm more concern now is the regional divide, which is more dangerous.
Why is there such a divide? Well, for one, India's a heavily populated country and as it happens, with limited resources. Now, our forefathers had a vision that India is a free country and so, any citizen can go anywhere in the country. But there'll always be people who feels threatened when outsiders come to their place. They feel the outsiders are trying to take what is rightfully theirs - lands, jobs, and other resources. They have a one-track mind, and they are jealous of other's prosperity. At the best, one comes to accept and live with these things. At the worst, violence and fights erupt out. One may think these people have a point because the land is where their forefathers have lived for generations and so, they feel they should protect their "home". Is this justified? Hardly! Look at what Hitler did to the millions of jews and other immigrants who came to Germany. It is this mentality which is very dangerous.
Secondly, human beings fear what they do not understand. At the best, people attribute incomprehensible experiences as work of divine happenings, and faith develops. At the worst, people are intolerant and they try to exterminate the things they do not understand. This is the same with cultural and regional diversity. How many of us truly understand the cultures of other people? Do we try to understand them? From my experience, there are lots of ignorant people in the country. And instead of trying to understand why someone from a certain state behave in a certain way, they make fun and joke about certain idiosyncrasies of people from other cultures. Are our egos so bloated that what we do and what we believe is the "only" right way to do things and our beliefs are the "only" right beliefs?
Stereotyping results. And again, from my experience, positive stereotypes are far less than negative stereotypes. Are we so shallow that we see only the negative points? Can't we see the good traits of others? Even in our own personal relationship, we tend to focus on the shortcomings of other people. Is this a result of our upbringing - with huge expectations from our elders that we should be the perfect human being with no faults? As a child, were we criticized more often than praised? Ve we been taught to look for negatives instead of positives? Why so serious?
Take an example. Crimes against women in our capital state are horrendous. Every few days, there's a new case of rape, molestation, and even murder. And according to one finding published in a reputed newspaper, nearly half of these crimes are met out to the girls from Northeast. These "chinkies" (by the way, it's a very derogative term) are supposedly easy and dresses provocatively (remember the Delhi Police guideline on how to dress given out to the North-east students). Is it true? Yes, some of them do, I admit. But two aspects are neglected. Does only the NE people dress provocatively? Are the majority of them dress provocatively? The answer is surprisingly no to both of these questions. So, what does this say? Why are we so blind? Again, we tend to see only the worse. It is damn sad. And it's the same thing in NE. Here also, there are reported kidnappings/killings and other crimes met out to people from other states. Why? Again, the same intolerance.
And the sad fact is these crimes are committed only by a minority of the populace, but the persecutions are born by the majority. The majority doesn't behave or think like that. They are happy to mind their own business and go on with their lives. But we see only the acts of these minority few and we accept it. We don't stop to question ourselves whether what we see is right or wrong.
What has happened to the visions of our forefathers who have brought the independence of our country? (Again, it's a debatable fact whether it was the effort of our freedom fighters or the changing world politics in the mid-20th century which resulted in India's freedom, but I'll not go into that. I don't want to make enemies here, and well, nor the issue here). Our current set of politicians and self-appointed leaders are painfully short-sighted and they have already forgotten that vision of one free united country. Count the number of truly nationalistic leaders in our country now. You'll find it less than the number of fingers in your hand. But what we need is such leaders only and I don't see that happening for sometime to come, especially when the majority of the politicians are so self-centred and the monkeys are pulling each other down (reminds me of the JJJAXI ppt - based on John Maxwell's famous experiment).
I'm sure I'm not the first one to raise these questions, and I'm sure more eminent individuals have put across these thoughts more eloquently. But should one despair because nothing's changed? Well, it requires a critical mass of right-minded individuals to bring about a change. Hence, this post.
So, what can we do as individuals? As a starting point, we can change ourselves and set examples by being a tolerant, positive, open-minded, thinking individual. But more importantly, we need to instil these traits into our children. As blessed educated, free-thinking individuals, we can certainly bring about positive changes to ourselves and to people around us. Come on, speak out.
Bij Chabs
