A thousand and three hundred million India we stand, A thousand and three hundred million India we bleed, A thousand and three hundred million India we die, A thousand and three hundred million India divided we fall. That dear friends, is India’s woe.
As I watched for 60 hours the spirit of a city being blasted into submission, I felt a sense of sadness, gloom, and loss as people groped for answers. We kept asking the same question over and over again, Why us? But even in this dark hour what we really wanted to know was Why me? That dear friends, is our problem.
On the map we are a nation, we are India. On the ground, we are a thousand and three hundred million independent nations fighting to establish our right of ownership. And when so many people stand divided, fall we must and fall we will.
We are Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Maharashtrians, Tamilians, Gujarathis, Bengalis, Bhaiyaas, Biharis, Malayalees, Kannadigas, Telegus, Kashmiris…the list is endless. Unfortunately and sadly, we are everything else but Indians. We describe ourselves as all of those and more and as an afterthought, an apology, we add Indian to ourselves. That always sounds like filling a column in a visa form of a foreign nation, and that’s it. We need a nationality for the form…so we are Indian.
We live within our four walls giving a damn to whether our neighbour is dead or alive. We make friends, so that we can name a few when needed, but rarely are friends. We see a person dying on the street, but move ahead because we have more important things to do in live. Isn’t life the most important thing on Earth?
We can remove leaders, change governments, enact new laws, but nothing will change for a government is the reflection of a society. Unless we change as a people our governments will be no different.
For that, we need to shed the Chalta Hai attitude, for that is our problem. Only when we stand for what is right, do away with what is wrong, and stand together to uphold the law can we survive as a nation.
Five of Mumbai’s own are believed to have provided support to the terrorists. What can be more shameful? When our own stab us in the back, why blame Pakistan, the LeT, or any alien for our misery.
Over thousands of years we have paid the price for standing divided. The Mughals, the Portuguese, the French, the Spanish, and the British, how can we forget them, ruled us over the centuries, not because we were incapable of ruling ourselves, but we were incapable of ruling as one.
Our freedom fighters fought for a free India and gave up their lives to set us free. Unfortunately, they set us free for us to chain ourselves again to narrow ideologies, personal gains, and selfish goals. And the results are there for us to see. A democratic nation groaning under the weight of its own abuse of that very democracy that was supposed to set us free.
I have no suggestions, no prescriptions for how to set things right. All I can say is if each one of us looks within, we will find the answer. If we live a life in which we do not hurt others, no one will and can hurt us. Everyone knows this simple fact of life, but then each one of us dismisses it as hogwash. For our collective sake and for the survival of India, I hope we start practicing what we have been taught in schools for decades—Unity in Diversity.
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