The question came along when the census authority landed at my house questioning me about my family, its religion, caste, occupation and other characteristics that made this family of three tick and how it would sum up in the larger Indian frame of things. I did not question back when he asked us the caste we belonged to, I had mentally thought of raising an alarm when he would turn up at our house and ask us this. The question that appeared before me was simply,"What is the idea of India, the nation?"
The textbooks, commentaries and general Utopian thoughts that I have come across simply suggest that India is a country of men and women with innumerable and diverse backgrounds bound together by a thread of nationality, an ideal called the Indian nation. So strong our forefathers thought that this bond was that once the nation grows under a common political front and fair governance, that India will no longer be the sum of all its parts but much greater, it would simply become one whole. Almost 63 years later to the date of Independence is there that common string binding the social fabric of this country and is there that single ideal that stands for the Indian nation.
Well that may probably be so as there is no single answer to the question, What is Indianess? There is no common language, no common religion(cricket and Sachin come close), no tradition, not even a single food habit that envelopes the entire Indian nation and its polity. In comparison America is a country formed almost completely by the assimilation of immigrants from the most unique and wide ranging diaspora of human beings in the world. The pursuit of happiness or making it big is the American dream, the American ideal and that thread which symbolises the American and gives its people that idea that is their nation.
I am possibly part of a generation which has a strong sense of pride in being Indian because I envision it as a state which provides me and people around me opportunities to pursue their dreams. But me and my friends do not stand for nor represent the entire generation may be just the suburb called Chembur. These opportunities that I describe be it economic, industrial and with respect to education and food are not equally distributed across the spectrum, and there in lies the differences. Which forces me to question would I give a damn for the Indian nation or its leaders if my schooling had been any different from the missionary aided school that I was in which emphasised on value education, Indian history and an assembly on the 26th of Jan and 15th of August? Probably not. Had I been born in a ghetto with narrow minded people how would I perceive governance and the equality of opportunity bestowed upon the citizens of this country? If I become an unemployed youth who would I blame for it,the government, myself, my education or simply my fate?
There are many Indias that exist and equally many diverse Indians living within these Indias. But what I assume the Indian nation and the Indian citizen should strive towards is to ensure that a parity is maintained in the distribution of opportunities to all people. The slum 500 metres away from the co-operative housing society I live in is a world I glimpse at everyday. I initially flinched at the sight.Then it became just another scene in the background, then I observed that there were people out there. People with aspirations just like mine and that I could not remain antithetic or indifferent to the world around me. And finally came a day when I saw a boy looking back at me. I wondered whether he looked at me with the same questions that were there in my mind and how he perceived the idea of his nation, his India and how indeed it was different from mine.
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