MY INCREDIBLE INDIA

School in my village

Incredible India, Beautiful India, God's own Country, Glorious, Amazing, Bewitching, all those lovely adjectives that can be added before "India" are added and we feel so very elated, because it is ours. We belong to this fascinating land. "I am an Indian," I proudly declare.

What lies beneath this thin veneer is almost never seen by us. Us- the people who can read, write and understand. We, who can vote, understand democracy, judiciary, apartheid, communalism, bias, discrimination, colour, race, caste. It is we who refuse to see what constitutes this beautiful, incredible India.

While going in my car to work, or a movie, a party, shopping, visiting, I come across little girls performing acrobatics at the busy road crossings. There are little boys with pencilled moustaches trying to appear like caricatures of grown ups, beating the drum to the accompaniment of which those little girls perform. They perform and run between cars trying to catch whatever we people shell out for that performance. Has it ever struck anyone how many times they risk their lives for a little bit of money to fill their own and perhaps their parents belly? Those little children are hardly three to five years old. Then we loftily talk of child labour??

In my country life is very cheap. There is so much poverty, so little to eat, no house to sleep in and no safe drinking water. What is the safety and security that can be provided to these children? They live their whole lives on the streets!

We do not wish to accept that there is any discrimination. If only we open our eyes and see the discrimination that is practiced everyday in front of our eyes, we will be totally stumped.

How is a woman treated in her own house? I have seen umpteen jokes being passed around which are totally derogatory and in very poor taste. They usually talk about how stupid women are. They are labelled as blond jokes-WHY? Are half the population of the world deserving of such ridicule? Can we not have any regard, and respect for those women who are our mothers, sisters, and daughters? If not yours, they are surely someone else's mother, sister and daughter. Why circulation of those nude titillating pictures? Why? Is that not abject poverty of thought? Is this not discrimination?

We discriminate on the basis of religion, and caste. A Scheduled caste person is never considered meritorious. Even if that person is the topper of a University. When that person gets a job purely on merit, it is said, 'Oh, so and so only made it due to the Reservation policy'. This stigma remains forever.

A Muslim born and brought up in India where his forefathers have lived for generations, is still always looked at with suspicion. How often have we heard it said of them, Why don't they go away to Pakistan? Why should such a thought cross our minds? They have as much right to this land as I of another Religion have. We were born to parents who professed a particular religion. We remain with it without giving it a second thought. Very few people actually convert to a Religion of their choice. Why then should there be discrimination based on Religion? It is simply that we happened to be born into that religion. Why does Religion teach to hate? Why all this talk and revival of talk of The Taj being a Hindu Temple? In fact of every monument in India being originally belonging to the Hindus. The pattern, architecture, age seems to elude the reasoning of most people. Even if we accept that all Muslim shrines are built on earlier Hindu temples, the question is what was the temple built on? Before the revival of Hinduism the Religion which flourished in India was Buddhism. Were these temples then built on Buddhist temples? Was not Varanasi developed to overshadow the great Sarnath-where Buddha preached his first sermon?Has the Buddhist temple at Bodhgaya not been usurped by the Hindus? In fact has Buddha himself not been snatched into the Hindu fold by calling him as the 9th incarnation of Vishnu?

Poverty is so rampant in this vast land that it pains to see the real picture of India. We were appalled to see the real side of childhood and slums shown in the movie Slum dog Millionaire. Do we not know that it really exists? We only wish to turn a blind eye and look cosily at that lovely poster of Kashmir and Kanya kumari and say, "Oh how beautiful is my land". How about all those who inhabit that land. Those who have to struggle for a single square meal, who have to Queue up for hours to use the public toilet facilities, or to fill drinking water. Running after buses which never stop on the Stop line. People with disability, get no help. Travelling in public transport is an impossible thought.

Poverty, illiteracy, hunger, undernourished children, malnutrition, rampant dishonesty are our traits. Those are what we cover, what we refuse to see. We only look at the facade and care not for the vast majority of this land. They all have a right to thais land, to the produce of this land. They belong here and we are not sharing what they should get. A handful have enough and more than enough to throw left, right and centre.

I feel disturbed when I hear people like Baba Ramdev talking of an Akhand Bharat and a Hindu Rashtra. What are they trying to preach? Can we erase the past? Can we simply wipe out hundreds of years of being subjugated to external powers who have actually made a difference to us. Why can we not accept that we were ruled as we were not capable of ruling. Outsiders came, conquered and ruled. Are the original inhabitants of India not to be blamed for not being able to defend themselves against foreign powers? Anyone who conquers will surely influence the country which it subjugates. We have imbibed a lot from the culture that came in. We have benifitted by the architecture, language, literature, art, music. It has all amalgamated and all of us of all caste and religion form this India.

When we are proud to declare that we are Indians please remember all those others who are also Indians and suffer silently, as they do not have the means or strength to protest.

Do your bit, please think about the street children, that ill treated person in your own home, your domestic help or your own old relatives. 

Be proud to be Indian but also help others also be proud of their own India!!