Indian Unity in Diversity? It's a Sham.

The essays that school made us do, "Unity in Diversity" and others which I fail to remember now but mostly about how united we are as a country. The commercials on the National TV promoting unity, that seems like it was a futile Ad campaign. These values all seem to disappear with the political greed of our leaders, as they more than often call themselves. Separatist movement is on the rise in India there are people who want more new states, attacks on out of state citizens and exploitation of regionalism for commercial gain. United we stand, Divide we fall. Everyone knows this, don't they? Well that's what I thought but I might be wrong. Oh wait, I AM wrong! No one in India seems to bloody gets this.

Diversity is a positive thing, it is something everyone wants to get to. The west is always trying to promote multiculturalism, diversity is an important business tactic to reach a larger customer base, diversity in investments, diversity in marketing and such, these are all something we need to get to. India has this diversity, we have always been different from each other though being from the same country. But, this diversity has also given us reasons to divide ourselves up and fight over trifle issues more often than less.

Through history India has been invaded scores of times by the Persians, the Greeks, the Mongols, the Mughals, the British and also been ruled by these foreign powers for centuries. These were armies that didn't necessarily have a upper hand, but they saw how much we squabble within ourselves and used it to their advantage. The Greater Indian Region in present day terms should have included Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Nepal and some far east countries. If we were ever united as one country, India would have been much more greater nation than it is today.

Dwelling on the past is not healthy for progress, but learning from the past will help avoid the mistakes we made over the past centuries. Three new states were created out of existing states in 2000, 53 years after Independence we are still dividing up the country. Andhra Pradesh is another state which might break up as the separation issue is gaining support from the political parties who want to win the upcoming elections. Recent attacks on people targeted just for the reason they were not from the state they were living in, is just something way over the top. The inability of the government in power to safeguard the rights of these out-of-state people is a blow to what we have been building in all these years of Independence. As Indians these people have the right to live in any part of the country without being harassed by the locals who by the way are Indians too.

The hatred of Pakistan seems to be the only reason that keeps us together. Pakistan is not much of a military threat, it will inflict damage in the event of a war but is not strong enough to win a war. Well, no one actually wins a war though, everyone loses in a war. After the recent attacks in Bombay (I refuse to call it Mumbai, it has been Bombay for centuries it will be Bombay for me) the country has never been more united ever. I don't think even the kargil war stoked such strong nationalist feelings. A majority of the country wants to go to war with Pakistan over terrorism but annihilation of Pakistan will ultimately result in a more divided India in the future, because we will have no one to hate except the hatred among ourselves.
The introduction of the English language by the British is bolstering unity through language among the younger generation, but Regionalistic feelings always seem to be stronger than Nationalistic feelings among Indians. The Indian Premier League will definitely not bring the country together since it is divided up into cricket teams among regions, this is exactly what we needed, is it? There is a lot of money involved in regions and Indians will be exploited as much as they can for commercial gain. Divide and Rule was the British way of ruling colonies, exactly what we follow now for political and commercial gain. Politicians try to hit the regionalistic sentiment as often as they can to gain some measly votes. 82% of Indians are Hindus, but Hinduism never seemed to help unity, it would break us into even more further divisions if we look upon religion as a binding factor.

There is a pattern through history, we become a great successful nation and then squabble among ourselves dividing the country up. We are dividing into new states now, in a couple of decades from now we will be dividing into countries. The generation shift with mostly western, capitalistic values might at least help the country stay together. Or maybe greed to get richer might help keep the country together. How pathetic is it that we have to look upon hatred and greed as our only factors that are bringing Unity to this diverse nation? The next ad campaign should try to aim at these factors to bring in Nationalistic feelings among the Indians rather than Unity in Diversity.