The Republic Day eve is almost here. Ok, that bit of info done, we move forward to our extended weekend plans – most of us must be having exciting plans up our sleeves, myself in for an Ooty trip! National holidays have always been, and perhaps always will be - especially if they are coming gelled with weekends - our long awaited vacations. My mother laments this attitude of mine as being one that may be classified as “unpatriotic” and “materialistic”. She tells me of the times when Prabhat Feris used to be taken out in every village & town on days of national importance like the Republic Day & the Independence Day. I’m flummoxed. Yes, we are literate enough to understand what they stand for, unlike someone from the rural hinterlands who doesn’t even know who rules them – the landlords or the higher castes (kind of shocking, but true), and Yes, our heart swells with pride while looking at all the military might being displayed at the parade in Delhi, but that’s JUST about it. From all strata of the society, the story repeats itself. The big doubt that arises then is, if you seem to be so apathetic about your own history, how, in the devils name are you still standing united as a country. I mean, how do we just tick along, and mind you, tick along nicely?! What actually binds this mass of land known as India?
I have traveled a bit across the length and breadth of India in my relatively short lifespan, and there were quite a few things I noticed. I have never seen any other adage than the following one coming so true about India –
“Kos kos pe badle vaani, char kos pe paani”
There is a peculiar thing about human nature – we love segregations, and have, over the centuries, made the same over an amazing variety of issues. First and foremost is geographical location and it all ends on geography too as I will display in a short while. People living in one particular area have similar needs and aspirations, so they clubbed together against outsiders for obvious reasons. This is more often than not funny – first, we fight and oppose others as a country, then fight other states retaining a state identity, then districts/townships, and followed on by towns/tehsils to colonies and finally ending up as unified households, even the unity of which, in today’s scenario, is highly debatable. During all this, we also realize that in order to elevate our position in society, which is the most basic human ambition, we need to downgrade others’. So come the distinctions of colour, chore, & race. To add to the woes, often big territorial chunks of lands, comprising similar, but not identical, cultures often come together on linguistic/cultural grounds. Examples for this being the Southern Quadruple and the North East. Even the aft repeated religion factor, which is SO misleadingly called to be the greatest binding factor amongst the followers also comes crashing down in this country, as the Gods worshipped majorly throughout India differ, even their names differing when it comes to South India. Frankly speaking, if you go to any major part of India, you will find a self sufficient city/region in place, without having even an iota of a need of a national identity. Take Tamil Nadu, for instance. It has its own industry, infrastructure, language, culture, cinema, art, history and believe me it is so self sufficient and complete that a north Indian actually feels gratified at spotting even words jotted in Hindi as an act of benevolence on the part of the locals! In fact, this one question haunts my mind most of the time – “Which other country in the world has a situation where a countryman can not talk to a fellow countryman, without using a foreign language as a common medium of instruction?” Such disparity, and mind you, I wrote “disparity”, not “diversity”!!! To say that it were the British who unified us as a country would be wrong, because long before them, we were unified by the Mauryans and, more recently, Akbar. The only distinction that the Britons achieved is that they have done it so for this generation and perhaps more to come in future, to revel in.
But nevertheless, here we are, as a country, where everybody’s chest swells with pride at seeing a single flag, the tricolour, flutter. So what is it that binds us?
The answer, as we all know very well in our hearts, comes from very frivolous issues indeed. Take cricket – love it, hate it, lament it, curse the boys, do whatever you want to, it IS a religion in India. It is one sport which removes all barriers erected by the people – religion, caste, language, regional, gender etc and we all cheer the “Team India” in one voice. There has not been a single place in the whole country where I have been and have not seen people go gaga over the game. Huddles inside a tea shop with all ears on the radio and all lips uttering analysis, curfew like situations on the roads in case of an important match, even the poorest managing to get TVs are all the signs of passion this game invokes in our country. North to South, Hindu to Muslim, Literate to illiterate, poor to rich, everybody sways to the tune of each wicket and each six identically.
Move to movies – they manage to break the greatest barriers with effortless ease. In my opinion, the greatest harbinger of communal harmony in this country has been the movie industry, which, even with all its stupid plots, manages to stir the heroes in all of us. No matter how much we admire the Hollywood for its finesse with the technical side and its penchant for “original” scripts, it still doesn’t stop us from making our “tear-jerkers” super hits and retaining our status of being the ONLY country in the world where Hollywood is still miniscule compared to the local movie industry. The whole industry, in all conduct, makes religious discrimination a medieval term; and being one of the most influencing medium of contemporary times, manages to make the audience feel the same too. It even manages to break the linguistic barrier, with Hindi movies running even in the remotest parts of South India to full houses, and the audience, though being thoroughly unaware of the language, still whistles and enjoys the whole experience. THIS, is being Indian – the ability to “understand” a fellow Indian or an Indian antic, even without having an actual “comprehension” of the same.
Our Armed forces, which constantly remind that there are people guarding us when we go to sleep in the night, people whom we don’t know and those who don’t know us, people who don’t do this as an act of philanthropy but as an act of duty, people who take a bullet on their chests as a means of protecting us, even though the natural human reflex to pain and danger is fear and self defense. I have had the opportunity to witness the Kargil war during my short stint with life, and I have never seen the whole country being united in such a manner. Curbing ALL our differences in all possible spheres, we marched together as Indians. I don’t even remember one instance of a fallout between two parties – in fact, even the “always at arms” politicians shut up their mouths for good!
If there was ever a term called national integration, it was on shining display during the summers of 1999.
And the biggest of them all – The constitution. The constitution, which is the same for one and all, which won’t fete out different directives based on one’s religion, region or caste, which would stand tall even in case of tainted governance, whose word will be the absolute & into which we all pledge to trust the day we become citizens of this country. This is the same constitution which MANDATES that flag as our tricolour, that fabulous piece of poetry by Gurudev as our national anthem, and that identity that we carry with ourselves as being an “Indian”. Without its existence, our existence, by every possible benchmark, ceases to exist. We owe our wholesome identity to it, and this being so much implicit in every move we make on this soil that even our constant bickering against it cant negate it.
I don’t even want to say that we understand this fact, solely because this would be equivalent to saying that we understand the importance of food for the existence of human body, only, here, the constitution is important for our being, our soul, our thought.
THIS is the common thread of existence that binds us all, and, despite having “disparities”, we portray ourselves successfully as having a “Unity in Diversity”!
And I don’t need any Prabhat Feris to understand this fact!
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