Snippets
Some thoughts on India
well, lots of communal violence going on in this country. not good. but what is surprising is that inspite of the history of the communal violence that this country has faced, right from the partition days we dont seem to have learned much from these instances.
When i say learn I dont just mean learn from the perspective of the people carrying out the violence but also those who are the victims of such ghastly acts.
first lets get the facts straight, India is a secular country. now to the best of my knowledge india is the world’s only ‘declared’ secular country. what i mean is say for eg. the US, its secular too. but it doesnt brag about it. of course mine and your definition of secularism would differ if secular to you would mean holidays for id to christmas to diwali.
back in the good old days of 1947 it was all sweet and nice to say “secular”, rare in the world that saw inequality not just in the poor part of the world but also in the richer developed part of the world. there was large scale racism in the US. anglo indians going to england because they were “british” were butchered. South africa’s apartheid was an accepted thing.
in todays world of equality, secularism has lost its meaning not that every body is treated equal. (well at least on paper) gender, caste, religion and even sexual orientation dont mean that much.
when the formal rule of the british crown came to india somewhere around 1858 ( before that it was the East India Company) it immediately took over the regions where the East india company was ruling. for the rest of the country, arrangement were reached as to their allegiance to the british crown and they were allowed to rule their small little kingdoms.
the indian freedom struggle ‘assumed’ for the first time a region /colony/ country under the british empire called india. nowhere before and frankly even during the british rule was there the concept of the india as a whole.
there is frankly no historical reason as to why a region such as kerala is a part of ‘india’ where as sri lanka is not. or why andaman and nicobar is part of india and not burma.
