One Muhalla Country

For a country it is a grim situation when it faces the challenge of sustenance from its own people. Regionalism creates such a crisis for sustenance. It divides people of the same country. People fight on base reasons that do not qualify any logic or bring any positive result.

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It’s a matter of great concern that majority of us have not yet understood the correct meaning of nationalism. I say this because such clashes are not new they have been since immemorial times. Since before coming of the British, the Mughals and others history is replete with examples of regionalism. Many people think the region where they live in and belong to is and should be theirs only, and others living in other parts of India do not belong to them.

I would remind history how princely states and smaller kingdoms developed and alienation caused great divisive factors that let outsiders come and rule India. Should I have the freedom to counter as great historical people as Shivaji who regarded Maharashtra as his only country and fought for the state than the whole of India, Rani Lakshmi Bai who fought for Jhansi, Tipu Sultan for Mysore, Nizamuddin of Hyderabad again for his own state? Were more such people not born and united into a force that could fight for the country than their regions?

Very often we come across saying the people from Punjab that they are from Marshal race, people of Bengal take pride in regarding themselves as Bengalis first and then Indians, South Indians estrange themselves from the people of other parts, Sindhis and Gujaratis boast of having business breeds in their blood, North-East Indians and Kashmiris reject even the idea of being Indians and the people from Hindi heart land sing encomium of their unique culture. (I don’t brand here each and every individual of this mind set but I can claim many of us are of this view).

Till you pride on your association it is fine, rather everyone should be proud of his culture. But when it becomes a tool that you want to carve out a people with then it creates alienation which breeds hatred resulting into violence. In response of violence others may also resort to violence which may lead to a race of violence. Bangladesh is the best example of being created only on the basis of cultural differences but we cannot be as foolish as others. India cannot afford fighting over such things and be further divided into smaller countries on the basis of religion, language and culture.

Many a time we hear making our country stronger can I ask how a country becomes strong? It is also true the world is full of variety of examples should we choose the one that is too bad for us? We often hear people say America is super power; can we question ourselves how a just 2000 years old nation became a super power? English as a language has gained worldwide acceptance; can anyone tell me how it became a universal language; by imposing, by fighting, by rioting, or by becoming a model language.

Can we not learn a good example from America which was created by uniting separate states into a single nation that is why it called United States of America? Typically China is learning the example from us to learn English as a second language to challenge our upper hand in the IT sector. I fear if our leaders fight on imposing regional language on one and all shall China lead us in future in IT as well.

The sense of pan India nationalism was created too late in our country, only in the wake of freedom struggle leading to 1947. Nevertheless, by then it was clearly realized that unless India is regarded as a single country with pan Indian thought India can hardly be free. Thanks to the stalwarts like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhash Chandra Bose and BR Ambedkar who realized this and succeeded to a good extent to work out for uniting India into a single nation.

It was their earnest effort that India does not promote such things that create division among its people. With such a motive our constitution was framed. To unite our nation the following factors were strictly followed:

Union Form of government is established

Single citizenship to the people

Single time zone

Single national flag, symbol, and anthem.

We cannot imagine what would have happened if we had dual citizenship in India like America. Many states would have banned people from other states in India itself from coming to: whereas the people go and settle down in the countries such as Australia, Canada, US, Europe and other parts of the world. Surprisingly the Sikhs won a legal suite in Canada some years back on wearing turban; can we not learn such tolerance and foster freedom of that level? Is our fight on celebrating Chchat puja in Mumbai justified on this paradigm?

The leaders are causing communal riots and hoodlum in the society with the lame excuse that they are fighting for the rights of Marathi people but we cannot understand how such riots and hoodlum can give them their rights. I cannot understand how people get jobs or services: by taking the exams or by preventing others from taking exams. If these leaders were really thinking about their people they should have started giving special training of the best quality to the aspirants so that they get selected in the exams in the largest number. There are many people from Maharashtra who have achieved great heights in various fields in India and abroad; can anyone tell me how they did this? By fighting or by sheer labor?

Preventing Bhojpur films from screening, banning banners in non-Marathi language and beating people on taking an exam do not help any people build their culture, language and respect. These actions do not save anyone’s rights. Rather they cause damage to the people at large both Marathis and non-Marathis.