I’m shocked. I’m in dismay. Having lived in a relatively cocoon like environ of a cosmopolitan college campus, perched in the southernmost state of India but with the peaceful and very happy coexistence of youth from all across the country and the world, I live in a mirage. Everything is so similar, the aspirations of the youth, the desires, the needs and wishes. We all want to get good jobs, have handsome incomes, do MBAs and higher studies, we want to rule the world and live the Golden Bird India dream.
Living on the better side of the Great Indian Divide which is much talked about these days, I am curious about the other end. Some days cheer you up, with news of skyrocketing development and promising glimpses of a wonderful future and yet most others are grim reminders of what the other India is facing. I do not distinguish this India from the other on financial parameters which are transient anyways, I do not want to harangue over inflation, stocks and oil prices and yet I don’t want to paint a rosy picture of a bright future. My division of India is on the secular and fundamentalist lines, an age old debate but now more relevant than ever.
Development has happened, progress is here to stay, richer shall the nation be but will this phenomenal increase in the GDP amount to Gross National Happiness?
Is this India not aware of the loss of secular identity we face at the hands of Jihadists? Aren’t we turning a blind eye to the atrocious and often state sanctioned violence by VHP, Bajrang Dal etc.? I’m ashamed to read about the Orissa carnage, attacks on churches across Karnataka. I’m unable to comprehend the fact that almost all major cities in the country are being bombed relentlessly; I’m gaping at the polarization that our national fabric has seen. I’m doing what everyone is doing.
I spoke to a Delhi friend about a week after the latest blasts, she told me that the general public would refrain from standing close to luggage at metro stations, avoid people of“typical attire” at parks and markets, and even be careful of even using garbage bins. She spoke an awful lot more about how people spot people as “suspicious” and how the secular temperament is changing…. Saffron and Green never seemed so drifted apart from each other as now.
Pakistan allowed religious fundamentalism to enshrine itself in the roots and core of the country, the armed forces, the educational system, government policies and national ideals since the late 1970s. We know what Pakistan faces today. A largely moderate society is being transformed and no one is safe, everything foreign is hated, the Islamabad Marriott blasts (and innumerable others) are a stark reminder of how deep has the Jihadi penetrated, the comfort to strike at will anyone anywhere. The nation lies in tatters.
Do we wish to let fundamentalism take over in our case of a multi-ethnic multi-religious society?
Be proud of this I read somewhere, a 1960s CIA report claimed India’s internal diversity will cause her collapse in 5 years. We’ve come a long way from then, yet not so far.
Out of all that we have at stake today, our first attempt should be to protect secularism, with every bomb blast and those affected, arrested and blamed- more people from this India move into the other one. The society in Our India is either too berserk minting money, too ignorant or dumb. The silent majority as we claim cannot go silent anymore, the more we sit and watch and ignore these grim reminders of social polarization, more we push us to the ill-fated prospect of balkanization or much worse. You may wish and claim and tout that it shall not happen but if the fundamentalist at both ends are given a free hand, wait 20yrs and see.
If we don’t rescue secularism, all else shall fall. Our only grace, our last chance. I’m still in shock. I’m in dismay and the headline I just read “Sack Jamia Millia Islamia VC: BJP”.
Good Morning India!
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