The Great India Geo-Political Strife

The news read that scared youth from north-east were escaping Bangalore fearing persecution for being different. Similar emotions were pulsing through folks living in Mangalore, Mysore, Hyderabad, and other southern states. Each of these people from far off distant eastern states, who had come to try their luck in the larger cities of the nation, were now abandoning their homes, hearths, and hopes to return to the desolate barren lands from where they had escaped. 

It saddens to think that citizens of the democracy of India, who have the right to access all parts of the soverign nation are being denied this basic right. If the country with its political and civil machinery cannot guarantee its citizens their fundamental rights as proclaimed and prescribed by the constitution, then the country has no right to enforce its constitution over these citizens.

This may sound radical but is equally and unequivocally rational. Citizens offer their trust, loyalty, and devotion to a country in exchange for safety, equality, and identity. A singular identity that binds across disparate cultures, languages, ethnicities, and appearance. For a country as geographically vast as India, it includes the Indo-Aryan Caucasiod, Dravidian Australoid, Sino Mongoloid, and Aboriginal Negroid stock that constitutes its diverse population. 

While the founding fathers of this septuagenarian nation were myopic enough to stitch across over five hundred princely states into one large grandmothers patchwork quilt, little did they foresee that within a handful of decades keeping the thread of cohesion intact would be chaotic and tenacious to say the least.

While the ruling political system has given into vox populi creating new states from erstwhile larger central ones, integrating these states together to form an stately nation is mission improbable (the optimist in me does not wish to deem it impossible while the pragmatist inside knows its far fetched).

What this country needs is absorption of its citizen diversities rather than amalgamation of its geographical jigsaw pieces mired in political apathy.

An Affair of States

The unity of this country is bound by a shimmering gossamer that belies its fragility.

How often do we read of a community insisting on elevated benefits that separate them from the diaspora that inhabits this country. How frequently do we find the leaders of this democracy advocating selective "equality" to bridge the unequal gap, further distanced due to this policy of duality.

Marginalization of the common man is not the solution to uplift the socially unequipped. But it surely breeds the inept from both stratas. The common turn reclusive and the disabled turn disinterested towards progress that is fueled by the spirit of competition. An old but relevant adage that captures the essence of the situation is "Give a man fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime".

We continue to dole out fishes to a cluster who are now waiting to be spoon-fed rather than using their skills to help themselves.

The classic division between the have-some, and have-not is not diminishing but rather interpolating. The have-not are gaining the ability to afford without the skill to appreciate. The have-some drain themselves constantly into a set of need-some-more. And the have-all continue to exploit the system to engorge their ever expanding hunger for more.

This is definitely a troublesome phenomenon for a country looking to proceed into the future. While the past impacts the present, it should not design the future.

We need to disengage ourselves from our idealistic vision of a utopian state with equality of resources and embrace the reality of equality of opportunities that extends across the national demography. Quotas should be out-quoted by achievements. The policy to squeeze and seclude should be replaced by increase and include. We need to enforce clarity towards a set of goals that include our strength in numbers while reducing the pitfalls of our inability to manage these numbers.

To achieve success in our 2020 mission we need the clarity of 20/20 vision.