Divided we Fall

When I was in school I used to read great things about India. We have so many states, so many religions, so many languages, so many cultures. I was amazed by all this knowledge and I truly believed what I read in the books. Soon, I found these books had a knack of showing only the shiny side of things. It was when I started reading the papers, that I began seeing reality.

India has so many states! And every state hates its neighboring states. There's always competition, there's always tension. Who is controlling the water. Who is controlling power. And now its a new trend to fight within states. Everybody wants that beautiful Chief Minister's title. What's the simplest way to get there? Definitely not struggle, work your way up, gain respect and earn the Chair. No. Start a new party (based on caste, language, region, religion etc.) and protest for a separate state. Excellent. I love rock music. I'll gather a big bunch of Rock fans and create a Hard Rock State of my own! Sounds wonderful doesn't it? I'll be Hard Rock CM. And for my political campaigns, Mark Tremonti will be shredding guitar. Oh! And my party symbol can easily be a guitar. \m/

India has so many religions! Once again I was brainwashed by the books. That all religions co-exist peacefully. I used to listen to all kinds of patriotic songs that praised the secular nature of India. And what do I see on TV. Communal riots, religious clashes, all kinds of nonsense. People openly criticizing other religions without even knowing that in the end all prayers are heard by One or heard by None! I strongly believe it's the latter!

When it comes to language, my brain goes into a tizzy. 1800 odd languages? (Its 1652, but I'm including the unknown ones too!) 1.2 Billion people. That's 666,666 people for every language (oops 666). Ok that was illogical! There are a few languages that are spoken like within a handful of people, so calculations and averages count for nothing. Obviously that would spring a new problem. It gets us back to the State separation. They were originally separated according to linguistic differences and probably that helped organise the country (which is still pretty highly disorganised) but ended up creating big barriers for the same reason of linguistic differences. So in theory, that gives us 1800 states! Can we live like that? Obviously, people move in and out of states and languages get jumbled. Sometimes it's work, sometimes family, sometimes something else. In the end we find people speaking multiple languages to converse and survive.

Is that bad? Then why all the mess that was splashed all over the news? The assembly hall becoming a wrestling arena because the oath-taker was speaking in the National Language and not regional? I got one word for it! Overly Frustrated Attention Seekers (oops that's 4 words). After centuries of coexistence, we still can't bear these minor differences that pop up. Why should only Marathis live in Maharashtra and why should they only speak in Marathi when there are 1799 other languages that belong to our country? Why should a Telangana state be created only for people living in that region? When the world is running away with technological advancements, ambitious, innovative, path-breaking, out-of-the-box ideas, we are still confining ourselves to within-the-box. And foolishly, we are making that box smaller. Things are supposed to grow over time, not shrink. Minds are supposed to get broader. Like people always rightly observe, there are only 2 things that grow in India. Economy and Population. Nothing else.

Already there was a huge debate over the so-called 'Pub Culture' and 'Mall Culture', as if they are some kinda cultures. Like people would prefer to buy 100 things in 100 shops than under a single roof called a Mall. How the heck could that be against Indian Culture? Did those ancient culture-creators, guess that 21st Century people will experience 'newer' cultures? Did they predict that people would try to save time buying all things at once, and that people would find hanging out in a public-house as a form of relaxation? Surely they wouldn't have been able to. And surely they wouldn't have written any rules that these were against 'our culture'. I feel like laughing thinking about this senseless thinking.

India is Democratic! Should have been the best thing about our country. But is it? Its letting people do what they want. Create state? Create. Create Language? Create. Protest new government? Protest. Demolish Mosque? Demolish. Start Riot? Start it. Own rules? So be it. Its as easy as creating a new variable and assigning your own value and properties to it for Programming. No one to stop you. No one to ask you. You do whatever it takes to feel comfortable and make your program work. Let the other variables get garbage values. Makes no difference to my variable.

So, we are diverse. Extremely diverse in all respects. And we have no respect for it. We were supposed to be proud of it, but we have been brainwashed. We were supposed to be together but we forgot. We need some reminding. We need more Tendulkars who proudly declare themselves as belonging to the country than a particular state or city or whatever (Never mind those handful of self-proclaimed 'protectors' of Culture). Natural Calamities, Terrorist Attacks, these are what bring people together. The few times when the barriers of religion, race, etc vanish (only to reappear once the calamity has passed). Can't even call them a 'Blessing in Disguise' with the unjust loss of so many lives. But only such radical stuff seems to be working for us. Or else, we continue to remain divided and we continue to fall apart.