3 days ago
- Politics
- New Indian Express
Regional disputes must quit India
It is bad enough that our ancestors lived through the evil that was Partition when we carved up our country and sacrificed hundreds of thousands of precious lives over religious fundamentalism then and ever since, but it is worse that we continue to allow individual/regional differences, religious extremism, caste, class and linguistics-based fault lines to get in the way of nationalism and unity.
There is nothing wrong with being proud of your regional roots, language, culture etc. but this cannot be allowed to prevail over our Indian identity. Likewise politicians and their minions who insist on a Hindu - Hindi Rashtra are emulating the same divide and rule policy that the British used to exploit and plunder India. This is inexcusable and we cannot keep blaming the Mughals and the Brits for our failures post Independence, especially our tendency to squabble endlessly over everything which has led to us amounting to nothing.
Petty parochial interests being chosen over national welfare reflect poorly on us especially when there is so much at stake for India. Surely it is possible for us to preserve our unique regional as well as national identities without letting one subsume the other? If we can pull this off, perhaps we will stop the perennial bickering which has served absolutely no useful purpose and finally realise the dreams of our freedom fighters who fought and died for the vision of a better India where all have freedom, dignity and none are fractious fools.
