The seclusion that is brought on by living in a foreign land where you do not know the language and culture so well and in which you cannot easily assimilate into so easily, has its own set of advantages for the discerning and the studious. I guess that is why great writers go to some secluded resorts and such places where they can think and write in peace. A great idea which I didn't appreciate till I did not leave the shores of my beloved Bharat.
Anyways, that is not the point of my writing. I was reading this post by Pritish Nandy in the Times of India. Critical as I am about the Times of India becoming a page three newspaper (just look at its website! hardly a piece of sensible journalism or a studious opinion), I still read a few columnists because they still possess the power of shaping opinions. Pritish Nandy though not one of them, does sometimes write very sensible blogs making some very obvious yet unspoken social comments.
In that respect, his present blog re-opened in my mind an important thought that has had me disturbed for quite some time. Why is there a need for India/Bharat to be one country governed by Delhi. I am saying this not least because I am growing concerned by high handed behaviour of our north-heavy diplomacy but more because, I genuinely feel that in last few years (and more so during the times of the Congress governments), it is almost as if any and every policy (even at state levels) is being approved/sanctioned/checked/done-something-to-it by Delhi! I am wary personally of the capital of India being a stone's throw away from India's two borders as it is, but I am also not happy that it represents the capital of the worst of rulers of this pious land - the Mughals.
And I do agree to the point that Pritish Nandy makes in his blog that we are crushing the various Bharats we have in our midst. I am yet not so knowledgeable to call myself an Indian scholar. But, the seclusion I talked about when I left Bharat afforded me some time to at least try to garner some information about the various people that we are! What really do we mean bythe word 'diversity' and why is it important that we preserve it in its entirety!
Just sample this. I belong to Maharashtra and to Thane district to be precise. The language spoken in my state is called Marathi. It is the 4th largest spoken language in India and 15th most spoken language in the world. Importantly, it is spoken majorly in as far away countries like Mauritius and Israel (where they speak Judeo Marathi) not to mention all those Marathi speaking emigrants in bigger and developed nations like the US, Germany, UK and others.
Importantly, Marathi is a descendent of the Maharashtri Prakrti which in turn is directly descended from the Vedic Sanskrit! The Yadav dynasty of Devgiri of the 12th century adopted Marathi as their official language and made it grow in to the major cultural language of the time. And last, but not the least, it has 42 intelligibly different dialects! That is WHOA-inducing statistic ... isn't it? How many Maharashtrians know this? I didn't till I googled it. Is Marathi (especially its dialects) not getting crushed under the written/spoken Marathi which due to heavy handed administrative methods of a class/caste rulers is crushing a lot of dialects or rendering them unimportant/irrelevant? I think its happening. I do not know if I have ever heard Varhadi/Vidarbhi dialect in my life. Nor, is it important in any social media it seems, as I cannot recollect any ad/movie making use of it ... now I maybe wrong. I recently heard there is a film coming up in Varhadi language which I think is a little too late as this should have happened long, long time ago! After all, Maharashtrians started the Indian film industry and first language in which films were made was Marathi!
If Marathi and its various dialects and culture is facing such erosion, we cannot even start to think what of all those various tribal cultures and languages in all of India ..
I think time has come when we should think about becoming a huge but loosely-held confederacy of the central government in Delhi. Meaning, almost like the UK, each state can represent a single country and its central functions be centralised in Delhi. Why should only Jammu and Kashmir talk about autonomy. It is important that if we want to grow our diversity and let it flourish, we should be able to give representation in policy to all the types of people and allow all the various cultures to come up and be respected instead of steamrolling or bulldozing them with a strong central government with its policies of minority-appeasement. Culture is never religion-specific, especially in India. Just take for example, the Christians in India wear sarees in marriage! My Christian friends did not kiss the bride ... its just not their culture. So, making out minority in religion and extending benefits is something that is done by politicians. The effort should be on promoting the single culture like the Maharashtra Dharma concept! After all Maharashtra Dharma is something that is defined by a Marathi way of living - which derives a lot from Hindu religious ways - and yet it is not religion-specific...
If we don't start talking and doing this, I believe like the Indian restaurants outside India catering only Punjabi food as Indian, we will end up having just one culture across our lands. One way it is good that it will develop a single identity of an Indian. That is something we have lacked all along in history. We have never had a single definition of what it means to be a Bhartiya, but then, how good is it if we, like the barbarian Muslim rulers of India, become barbaric about our various cultures and diversities? How Bhartiya will we be in that case? Probably time has come, that we form our sub-national identities as our real identities and retain the Bhartiya identities for only such endeavours as border protection, international relations and sports. Rest should be all 'local' ... That way, we will achieve the best of both worlds. Jai Hind :)
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