"No communty, caste, creed or religion is a minority in the Indian soil. Only true Indians are the minorities." In our country, when we are asked who we are or where we are from, many of us say that we are Tamils, Malayalees, Telugu or Hindu, Muslim, Christian or sometimes we recognize ourselves with their communities. But how many of us say that we are Indians!!!
We ought to have a feel that we are Indians. We ought to keep up the pride of India. But will we?Why do I ask this? Because, about six to seven decades back, we had great Indian patriots. When foreigners said that India would break up because of the vast variety of people there. Foreigners even predicted civil wars in India because of the cultural and linguistic differences in India. However Sardar Vallabhai Patel united India and we, the people of India, kept our heads high saying that we are united. We stayed united with love and harmony. We had that maturity. But now? We see people making hate speeches saying that if someone of the other religion raises a finger against a person of his religion, he will slaughter that hand. How cruel! This is better when we see people threatening about blood baths and saying that INDIA WOULD NOT REMAIN ONE COUNTRY, if their purposes are not met (Ref. The Hindu dated Apr 09, 2009. Click here to read). Where will all these non-patriotic, inhuman, selfish, atrocious, uncivilized, barbaric words and deeds lead to? A divided India??? God forbid.
We all might have learnt in our history that Britishers followed a policy of Divide and rule in our country. I think, the present day politicians are not very different. They use our religious, lingual and other sentiments and divide us. However don't blame them completely. If they mislead us, don't we have brains? If somebody agitates us, why should we be agitated. Don't we have the sixth sense to know what is right and what is wrong? Then why do we become victims of such anti-patriotic elements of the societies.
It is just because, we think only of ourselves. We lack a sense of justice for everybody. We lack maturity. We lack selflessness. We lack empathy. In short, we are plain selfish. Aren't we? We say that our rights are gone? At that time, do we think of the rights of others? We kill other's rights.
Think deeply about this problem in our country. What is happening here. Someone does some wrong or a crime against a someone. So he lodges a case. A proper punishment is not given to the accused. So the victim(group) gets enranged and acts with a motive of revenge, not wanting to forgive or forget. Even if the direct victim is inclined to forgive, the 'dividing and ruling' politicians provoke and incites hatred in them and make them to take revenge. Now the first sect driven by ego, not wanting to apologise, fights back. Finally, the fight becomes a civil war. And the world starts to debate who is right and who is wrong. Isn't this the case in India in almost every single problem we have?
So what is the solution? The solution lies in developing a feeling of common brotherhood in children. Adults are too mature to understand. It is the young community, who have to be taught morals and virtues. Greatness of truth, tolerance, forgiving sense, patriotism, loyalty, a sense of what is good and what is not, courage to fight alone, courage to apolgise etc. have to be taught to the children. They must be taught to move along with children of all cultures, religions and languages and thus make them understand the truth that all cultures, religions and languages have their own speciality like theirs. Gandhiji says, religious tolerance is not very easy without an active understanding of the principle of various religions. Children must be encouraged to know the greatness of various cultures, languages, religions and ethnic groups. Celebrating festivals together is also a great way to develop cultural tolerance.
If and only if, we are able to have this tolerance, we are worthy of saying that we are human beings. Otherwise we are brutal beasts. I finish with the words of Rabindranath Tagore,
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action;
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
--Rabindranath Tagore
Yes. Let India not be broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls.
IMPROVE INDIA, IMPROVE WORLD
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