Tuesday, December 2, 2014

The Idea of Free India

Indian Regionalism has come in three varieties - Regionalism properly so called, Parochialism (provincialism) and Secessionism as was being observed in Kashmir uptil last elections.
There are 8 main reasons to a unified India, 8 factors that keep this crew somewhat together. Four are the bequest of the British,
(i) The Game of Cricket (ii) The Railways (iii) The Civil Service and (iv) the English Language.

Four others are of "Indigenous" origin.
The first is the Hindi film, providing a shared worship of heroes and a shared Vocabulary in which to speak of them.Second are the Epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, which gives us a shared moral (and sometimes immoral) Universe. Third is the territorial boundedness by the Himalayas and the Oceans. Fourth and the most significant of all is, the integrative idea of India embodied in the Constitution.

Scientist and polymath J.B.S. Haldane in one of the finest tributes to "Gandhi-Tagore-Nehru-Ambedkar-Idea of India" had applied for Indian Citizenship in 1956. He once called India "the closest approximation to the Free World" and to this a scientist from New York protested "India has its fair share of scoundrels and a tremendous amount of poor unthinking and disgustingly subservient individuals who are not attractive"

To which Haldane responded - "Perhaps one is freer to be a scoundrel in India than elsewhere... They do indulge in riots and refuse to abide by the Law but I don’t think their activities are very efficient, but that is not the question at issue.." in effort to advocate the Idea of Free India.

Now we need to stop and think..!!!!

Do we really deserve this advocacy ????

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