To begin with - The title of this post is a spin-off from the article of Joshua Meah - 'Encircle the Dragon', which by chance was also my last blog post.
Interestingly, the last few days, I have seen a flood of articles on the internet regarding India - China relations, few of them being insanely funny yet scary, where the authors have taken few assumptions to make us beleive that China shall sooner than later attack India. Today, one more such article, originally written in Chinese, and translated into English by a lot of bloggers online in the last few days, finally found space on The Times of India (online version atleast).
Without commenting much on the assumptions of these various authors and their terrifying conclusions in the articles, I would rather throw some light on a harsh realitywhich is also depicted and exploited well by the author who belongs to our northern neighbor. A lot of people have already discussed this reality at various forums, shall continue to do so, and while I finish writing my post, few others might have done already on the same topic as well.
Now, to put things in perspective, I would divide this post into two idea's:
- The Idea of India ; and
- The Idea of being Indian
The Idea of India - As the Preamble to the Constitution of India states that India is a 'Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic' governed by the principles of 'Justice, Liberty, Equality & Fraternity', truly the country was born with the correct idea's and principles needed for growth, freedom & prosperity. While there is no confusion regarding the idea of India to us & to the entire world, but many of us Indians have a deep subliminal confusion when it comes to the Idea of being Indian.
The Idea of being Indian - If you understood the idea of India well, describing & defining the principles and idea's by which an Indian is governed should not be a tough call. Atleast would not be a tough call literally. But alas, we need to be practical here. The moment you get practical and come closer to reality, you would know the principles which we Indians in general follow our nowhere close to 'Justice,Liberty,Equality & Fraternity'.
Right from the super rich & politicians to the beggar on the street & the non empowered comman man of India, all of us some way or the other, end up always defining ourselves as either Punjabi's, Marwari's, Gujarati's, Marathi's, etc or to the even worse definition according to the caste system. According to me, all of us are equally responsible for this as much as our system of reservations etc, is in creating this drift between all.
The system, which might have been useful in the 1940's & 1950's to empower the socially backward classes does not necessarily mean shall be useful in today's scenario. The education level, health level, awareness level, everything has gone up, and by still continuing this reservation system, we our only splitting ourselves.
Individually as well, rather than consolidating our Indian identity, we choose to be known more as a Hindu/Muslim/Christian... or a Punjabi/Bengali/Marwari/Tamil... and so on....
Before you start scratching your head thinking the relevance of what I have written above with India-China relations, let me now tell you what the Chinese have been talking about. It is exactly this weakness of our's which is now being exploited by China, where strategic experts are writing articles to urge the Chinese Government & its friendly countries like Pakistan, to attack India and split it into various parts, where the Bengali's shall live separate than the Punjabi's and the Tamil's shall stay separate than the Keralite's, etc.... It might sound funny and unimportant to few, but this is exactly the biggest weakness of our nation. I think, it is not at all difficult, with the Chinese & Pakistani's supporting various separatist groups all over India & poisoning the very idea of India.
Sadly, our Indianness & our identity as Indians only shows up when we our abroad or while playing cricket. Most of the times, we fall prey to the dirty politics and the so called rituals of our past, and forget the principles of equality & fraternity.
Before anything else, it is time to encircle ourselves in the idea of being truly Indian.
Comments Welcome.
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Sidharth Mehta
Dubai, UAE
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Key Tags: Sidharth Mehta, Encircle The Tiger, The Idea of India, Being Indian, Identity of India, India China Relations, Indo Sino Relations, China attacks India, India Hits Back on China, Articles on India & China Relationship, India China Nuclear Nations, Cheap Chinese Products & Strategies, India China War, War Strategies
Posts
Hi Sid
ReplyDeleteQuiet True !
rgds/Nikhil
Hi Sidarth,
ReplyDeleteI read your blog and it was very interesting and true. Just like in my country, the United States, people tend to divide themselves into groups, (democrate, republican, conservative, liberal). Such divisions only ends up hurting the people of the country. It is time to put aside those differences and join together to make your country strong so you can stand up against your adiversaries, like Pakistan and China. I love your country and hope the best for its future.
You are very much right Siddhart. I've got the same thoughts as you have. And i'll go one step further and say that even people belonging to several sub-castes who are extreme in sticking to their castes never think of themselves as Indians. Its high time now that we the young people of this great nation take charge and create awareness that first we are all Indians. No matter what our differences are but we shall not let any other nation divide us once again and rule us.
ReplyDeleteTrue. Thanks all for your comments.
ReplyDeleteI think the only way to go forward to break the divide between all people, either color,caste,religion,etc is only through education.
The more people get educated, the more together they would be. Obviously, policies need to change as well accordingly; and a policy of 'reservations' should be abolished with time, because it will only further divide people in India.
Quite a few intersting thoughts here..I take time to ponder 'even the true thought of differentiation from being India to Being a true India',Infact I aks are we true to India except for the sudden rush of adrenaline at times during the cricket matches and harsh reality attacks by terrorists.
ReplyDeleteI feel even before we judge the nation as generalised version.. I feel every citizen of this country should ask themselves ..How True Of An Indian I Am?
Hi Sid!
ReplyDeleteInteresting but sadly a very true picture being portrayed above. Not surprisingly, this is the prime reason that China has been able to succeed at a pace far greater than us. They are united in a nationalistic movement. But come to think of it, this nationalistic feeling is primarily driven home by the government itself. Just like what you teach a small child when he/she is growing u, a lot depends upon the ideas that germinates when a new country is liberated. For instance, had we been governed by a more strict administration or even a dictatorship rule for a few years post '47, we would have valued the ideas being prescribed in the constitution. But I being an optimistic nationalist firmly believe that we are around that corner...