Time we learnt some lessons

I cannot recall who exactly wrote this bit in a Hindi essay, (maybe it was Acharya Agneya or Sumitra Nandan Pant) but I recall the bit very well.  It went something like this in Hindi "the beauty of Indian Unity is best seen in Carnatic Classical Music, where the music is named after a Kannada speaking region, sung by Tamilians mainly and the words are in Telugu".  Those were the days when people were happy searching for bonds of commonality and forging them to create a strong and united India.  Today, we are verging on a precipice of integration disaster and nothing illustrates this better than what happened two days ago in Hyderabad.  My problem with the vandalism that saw the uprooting and defacing of statues is only very peripheral.  As I have stated in my post of yesterday that I do not subscribe to the erection of statues and I have also given my reasons for that, and so I shall not write anymore about that.  However, what concerns me most is the intolerance that went into the vandalism.  You have a perceived and I use the word well advisedly outsider and you see these statues as symbols of the oppression of the perceived outsider and therefore in an act of hate and spite, you vandalize them.

To me this act is very much akin to the demolition of the Babri Masjid, because that also is rooted in intolerance.  Let us now face a truth, however inconvenient it may be to some of  us.  India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are actually one nation, though they maybe three different nation states*.  I recall what Tony Greig was saying when he was commentating on TV for a world cup cricket match between Australia and Pakistan in the year 1992.  Australia was batting and there was a lot of chatter from the Pakistani fielders and Greig simply said "Pakistan will play India in the next match and then I guess things will be a little more silent since they will be understood by the Indians who share a lot including languages with them".  Those are not the exact words but what they convey is the exact meaning of what Tony Greig had said.  We may not want to recognize this unity but the fact is that it exists.  A big number of Pakistani Muslims speak Punjabi and Kashmiri and we know that almost all Bangladeshis speak Bangla language.

The story that is accepted today is that the British divided and ruled India.  Maybe.  What facilitated the division is that there was always a simmering intolerance to the perceived other in this country and that is what was exploited.  I read with distress a report in the Times of India of today that people like Hanuman Chaudhary who was once advisor to the Chandra Babu Naidu Government and Katti Padma Rao a revolutionary, have advised people of Coastal Andhra and Rayalseema to reconcile to the creation of a separate Telangana.  They have said most Coastal Andhra culture is different from Telangana culture. Differences in culture need not mean divisions.  

I want my readers to understand my angst.  It is not that I am batting for a Telugu nationalism and a united state for Telugu speaking people.  My angst is fuelled by the fact that we have started magnifying differences and want divisions and polarisations on the basis of that.  There will be differences, but those differences cannot and should not be the basis for sectarian and parochial thinking.  I oppose the breaking up of Andhra Pradesh because that does not solve the problem.  Tomorrow differences will arise between Coastal Andhra and Rayalseema people, as will differences between various people of various parts of Telangana.  If you are curious about how I am so certain about these differences arising my answer is that politicians will create them if they don't exist for their own purposes and incite people against each other.

I have said that the politicians will exploit the differences between people. The question then is who will bridge the differences and solve the problems.  The answer is simply "people".  The plight of the unempowered in Coastal Andhra, Rayalseema and Telangana is the same.  The differences are between the empowered groups.  It is therefore the duty of all well meaning citizens to strive for a proper civil society that will help bridge the divide.  Ultimately people will have to help themselves, not rely on wily politicians to do something for them.  For that a civil society is required.  It is the bounden duty of all the educated well meaning people to take this idea to everyone not just in Andhra Pradesh but the whole of India so that we learn to empower people and respect each other.  That will depend on a public sphere and deliberative democracy and not on electoral politics and just representative democracy.  The need of the hour is to empower all, tolerate and respect difference and  forge a common goal of development.  That will not happen with breaking what exists.  That will happen with building on what we have today.

*I am talking about what was when India became independent and not necessarily now.