Refelctions

As the new year walks in… parties and celebrations to mark the new beginning lighten up your surroundings. Lets make new resolutions, to make our life better.. what is yours? Kicking out bad habits, a bit of discipline in the haphazard lifestyle…. Are you planning to quit smoking or drinking? Or sticking to a new diet plans? Working hard to bring up your grades? Putting in that little extra effort to become your boss’ pet in office? Small resolutions can make big difference. Its new year, a reason to celebrate. But why are we celebrating. A year torn by financial crisis, terror attacks, hatred and sepration… gloomy but past now. It is gone so let us celebrate. Yes it is gone but is it past? 24.3% of the population earned less than $1 a day in 2005. According to the latest (as of December 2008) World Bank estimates on poverty, based on 2005 data, 256 million Indians, or 41.6% of the country's population, survive below the updated international poverty line of $1.25 (PPP) per day. Moreover, in India 828 million people, or 75.6% of the population, live on less than $2 a day, compared to 72.2% in Sub-Saharan Africa. Poverty is just one of the truths… we have witnessed worst. The multi cultural, multi lingual, versatile India we have been taught to be proud of is tearing apart. Every time a blast or an incident of terror takes place we start pointing fingers. We have classified our population in categories, there is a majority and then ther are minorities who fear partiality and oppression. Orissa was torn apart with riots, communal or ethical, they were riots killing the innocent. The majority claimed their leader was killed, they said the tribals were lured into changing their religion… can a civilized society justify killing innocents for blind revenge.
The nation was shook again and again; serial blasts tore apart the sense of security. Each time a bomb exploded, fingers were pointed. Delhi was shaken again and we were reminded that we are not safe any where, in markets, on the streets, are we facing some kind of civil war, what is this. Blasts were followed by encounters. Encounters do happen every now and then, but this one was more of a political issue than a issue of security. Some parties tried to cash on the majority and some tried to secure their vote banks among the minorities. The tagged electorate was divided. For in politics we are not humans but numbers. But we don’t understand this, or do we. Perhaps we do, Assembaly elections in 6 states showed that development, sadak, bijli and pani are bigger issues.
We then had, what was called a big revelation, the threads of investigation in the Malegaon case pointed toward the majority. Now, the tagged divided population is pointing fingers toward each other. We don’t trust police, we don’t trust our laws. The only truth for us today is our insecurity. Yes we are tagged and divided. Religion is just one of the things. Language, culture, cast are we one?
The Mumbai attacks made us realize that we can not stand if we are not one. We came together, but why is it so that until there is a threat from outside we can not unite? Aren’t we Indians above all? We are a secular nation; no one can stop any one from following a religion and in this tagged demography, the majority always came forward and said yes we want to be secular.
It’s New Year; lets add to our resolutions, a promise to live up to the nations pride. Question your self, what is my identity, a hindu, a muslim, a Christian, sikh, jew, parsi… majority, minority…. Backward, forward, dalit, SC- ST … or an Indian. Are we progressive, do we want to be progressive, can we be objective, can we move forward with 100 years old idea. Can we allow ourselves to be divided further…. Lets ask and ourselves and try to think beyond the lines. As Tagore said,
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow
domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action--
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
Have a Happy New Year