Kr Swarn Kishore Singh
When I think of writing about the idea of India, I cannot leave aside the quote of Swami Vivekananda which is;
“The land where humanity has attained its highest towards gentleness, towards generosity, towards purity, towards calmness- it is INDIA.”
At the outset the idea of India can be discovered by the fact that Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi was welcomed in Ireland by Irish kids with recital of Shlokas in Sanskrit from Rig Veda. So one thing which should be etched in mind is that Rig Veda is not just a holy book of Hindus and Sanskrit is not only a language but part of long living culture of India.
But now we are a nation which houses a diversity of faiths and cultures. And to add fury to this diversity, there is a very ominous ambiguity and vagueness between faith and culture, thereby the confusion between these labyrinthine entities become very eminent. And then a strange tendency lives within us all, to effectuate the tilt of the system towards their own style, thereby imposing their methodology on the rest. Every other community wants to mould the set up as per their own convenience just to prove its dominance. Muslims need Sharia law and Caliphate system, Sikhs demand Khalistani system, and Hindus aspire a Hindu nation. Inspite of constituting only 14% of the total population, Muslims fantasise Caliphate system in India, wherein there is no place for non-believers i.e. Kafirs. And Hindus inspite of knowing that one in every five individuals in India is a person who does not subscribe to the philosophy of Sanatan Dharma; they hanker a Hindu nation. And when it comes to Sikhs, they want to establish Khalistani system, that too after tearing a part from India.
This is just a result of a serious and silent connivance between the pseudo-socialists and some hardcore communists, of which we all are part of. The text books, we are teaching our kids are too spurious and manipulative for them to know the real history. There has been a great deal of distortion in our history. We are being made to read books which have been written and edited by communists since long and the distortion of history is a specialization of these communists since the regime of Stalin. Hopefully now efforts are being made to make the amends and to rectify the mischief of the then Lal salaam guys. We should never forget one thing that India i.e. Bharat was not born on 15th August 1947, but it was only liberated from foreign invasion on that day. And a new body i.e. constituent assembly was formed to catalyse formation of a new set up (democratic form of governance) which could possibly evade any further invasion of the sub-continent and reflect the will of the people of India in the best possible manner. But the literature our kids read in school make it appear as if the freedom struggle started with the formation of Congress in the winters of 1885 and India got birth in the summers of 1947. India is one of the oldest civilizations of the world, infact we are the only civilization of the world which has endured the toughest tests of time. And since long we have shown the world how in a diverse society, different communities can co-exist prosperously and even contribute collectively for the progress of the country. India is a land which has accepted everyone with open hands, actually barring Hinduism & Buddhism which took birth in India itself, every religion which arrived here was welcomed. We even welcomed foreign travellers for churning of different ideas whether it was Megasthenes from Europe , Fa-Hien and Hiuen Tsang from China or Al-Biruni from Central Asia. Infact we are a civilization which is recognised for not having persecuted anyone just because they belonged to a particular faith. Our obsession for secularism can never be measured or analysed in terms of 42nd amendment in constitution of India (ironically it was made when the country was in state of emergency). And the case gets worse when some people equate the revolutionary effects of 13th amendment of constitution of USA with 42nd amendment of constitution of India, which is utter stupidity. USA had removed a bad tradition by virtue of this amendment and India just codified what was earlier part of our culture.
Although it can’t be denied that some black sheep are there in our society who are still caught in the cage of past, but now is the time they should shed the idea of a unilateral India and accept the idea of India which was shaped in the form of the constitution of India collectively by the constituent assembly. But personally, whenever I start boasting of possessing one of the most inclusive constitutions in the world, the words of Nani Plakhiwala start echoing in my ears i.e.
While dedicating his book “We, the people” to the people of India he said;
To my countrymen;
Who gave unto themselves the constitution,
but not the ability to keep it;
who inherited a resplendent heritage,
but not the wisdom to cherish it;
who suffer and endure in patience,
without the perception of their potential.
The glory of our past and the obscurity of our present state can be described in better vocabulary.
Our Prime Minister had said in Parliament that the religion of India is “Nationalism i.e. India first” and the holy book is “Constitution of India”. Further when there is any ambiguity in the way the constitution is to be interpreted, we have judiciary at our disposal via Art. 32 & 226 of Constitution of India. Mr Modi had not said something which is anew for us Indians. We, as a society have been living this way since long. The constitution of India is just a book which reflects the way, which lies in between the manner in we have lived earlier and the style which is perfect for us to progress and prosper in the modern world. If we study India, we may get to know that a king called Rama had ousted his wife from his palace just because the public opined such. Can anyone expect this much of democracy and respect of public opinion anywhere else? We have been practising such democratic ideals since very long.
And now when we talk about idea of modern India, India can neither allow the slaughter of cows nor the minorities can be lynched by the outrageous majority. I am glad this thing reflected when recently Sikhs kept the photo of Bhindrawale on poster in Jammu and when the Kashmiri lady Asiya Andrabi hoisted Pakistani flag and addressed a rally of Hafiz Sayeed, the government via the law enforcing agencies played an active role. It should be the prerogative of the government to ensure that the law of the land is implemented very strictly. Successively governments have let the grass grow under their feet but something which will amuse us is, if this government finally comes up with a plan not to indulge in flattering with these dirty elements but to deal with them sternly whether a particular miscreant is from majority or minority. The policy of letting the sleeping dog lie won’t help anymore. The black sheep should be detached for herd of good ones very quickly. Otherwise the repercussions can be really drastic which we could hardly afford at this juncture.
(The author is an advocate working in Supreme Court and a political observer.)
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel