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Unity in diversity....?
Since junior school have been reading this phrase in almost every civics book. How true or how farce is this really with reference to India. On my 3rd trip down south I certainly see diversity on the way but unity. Hmmm….
Some 6 hrs from Chennai at a small station saw a group of railway police giving away pamphlets and announcing something in tamil. They were educating people about the rules you are supposed to follow while traveling (including the ‘no smoking in train’ one :-x )
While handing me a pamphlet the policewallah asks me in a very strange accent (probably was speaking hindi after ages): ‘aap hindi hai?’ Now I didn’t know how to react, I mean WTF do you mean by that.?? If Hindi ~ Hindustani then we all are one. Or probably he was referring to vernacular thing. In any case he handed me a pamphlet in English after I nodded to his previous question. He obviously didn’t have any in hindi, not that it makes a lot of sense getting them printed in hindi as there are hardly any people down south who speak our national language. It’s not this sudden patriotic rush in me which makes me write this, but just plain cold facts. Last time when I was in Chennai I did some research and found the schools just don’t have hindi as a language, they have options of French, German, Spanish etc. but no Hindi. Obviously people down south really abhor this language or is it something else? I mean Hindi apparently is one of the easiest languages to speak in comparison to all those languages in the southern states which sound the same to us northies. Or is it an age old fight that we are outsiders and they are the real Indians, which is to a lot of extent true as Dravidians were the ones who had always been here, and we Aryans came and started settling around. Now, is that a reason to hate us? According to them definitely, cuz I don’t see any else. And trust me they hate you, everywhere you go you’ll be seen with a piercing gaze (as if screaming, ‘You bloody outsiders’) Everyone, from the autowallahs to doodhwallas to your maid despise you. Ok, enough condemning the southie attitude, this post is supposed to do more than that. Let’s talk about the north eastern states, the 7 sisters as we proudly call them. Are they equally proud enough to be Indians? Let me reframe my question, do they even consider themselves Indians? Surprisingly you’d find the answer to be ‘No’. We spend so much money on our military out there. We give them special citizenships where they don’t have to pay taxes and get other benefits. Still whenever somebody from the north east goes to any other part of India he says ‘I am going to India today’. Now these things can really hurt you as a nation. Go to any regional states (all except central states, delhi etc) and you find a strong strong regional feeling there which will make you feel out of place. Kashmir definitely deserves a mention here, but then I could go on n on. So all in all we don’t have a nation but several nations sticking together just for the heck of it. Diversity definitely; but unity none at all. And amongst all this there are people like me who keep traveling from place to place, belonging to every place they go, but still searching for a home..
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