"The British left six decades too early" - goes a comment in a newspaper on 15th August.
What did the writer actually mean? He spoke about Indians' lack of planning and how the Brits are better at planning and developing infrastructure. Fair point.
But what came to mind when i first read it was that the British could still rule India.
Sometimes one feels that India should have been 28 princely states (plus the Union territories) rather than one country. The reason i say this is because of our propensity for regionalism. It is always us v/s them, Biharis v/s Mumbaikars, South Indians v/s North Indians, ... Just take a look at the number of political parties in India and you get a sense of what is being said. And then there is IPL - Chennai Super Kings, Delhi Dare Devils, etc.
There is some glamour to it, isn't there?
Who is to blame for all this?
Politicians? You? Me?
Or is it the idea of Indianness?
Such a diverse country can't be described in a sentence. Or can it?
You can't describe it in terms of religion. Although Hindus are a majority, we should not forget that India’s Muslim population exceeded Pakistan’s (until at least the mid-1990s). Besides we have Sikhs, Christians, Jews, etc. Not language, as the constitution officially recognizes 18 languages (God know how many dialects these have). Not even ethnicity - India has been invaded by too many ethnic groups in the past; so the chances of belonging to a single race are out of question.
All said and done, what matters most is that the world's largest democracy works. How it works - nobody seems to know, but it does work. Adman & lyricist Prasoon Joshi puts it well: There's a rhythmic chaos in India. There is something that binds us all - the clichéd "Unity in diversity" comes to mind. We have a Sikh PM who got that position thanks to an Italian. We love Shahrukh Khan.
After 62 years of independence, we still have problems of poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, population growth, etc. Despite all these issues, I'm gung-ho about young India. A confident India - ready to take on challenges head on. From MTNL to cell-phones, DD to DTH, restraint to indulgence, from bottling up to blogging, we have come a long way baby.
But we haven't arrived yet. We still have a long way to go. Let us all come together and bridge the gap between Bharath and India.
