WE the BIASed people

To be a part of the nation

To call your nation a united one , standing tall with its diversity

And then be looked upon as a traitor

How humiliating a form of discrimination can get?



Sir John Strachey , a member of the Governor General’s council who helped in the establishment of British Raj in India expounded in his lectures that ‘India’ was merely a label of convenience , ‘a name which we give to a great region including a multitude of different countries’. Besides, there is not , and never was an India , or even any country of India possessing , according to any European ideas , any sort of unity –physical, political,social or religious.

His lectures were studied by those who worked in India after coming down from Cambridge.



However provoked we may feel as Indian citizens but how much do we do to counter the deep seated bias in ourselves? Why don’t we learn lessons out of history when we were divided to rule?



The term discrimination, whenever read in the Indian context mentioned in our textbooks was always related to the derogatory behaviour of Britishers towards us in the pre independence era , the class divide in India where the lower castes are still facing the scorn of the society and the trend has been on since time immemorial(dating back to inception of the classes)… There are many such prejudices which our society nurtures. One of the lot is the racial profiling of muslims in India. How easy has it become for us to think of a terrorist only as a muslim, making the two words sound synonymous to the ears. The nonchalance with which its exclaimed makes matters worse.



Every attack in the Indian subcontinent is followed with discussions from parliament to the streets of India about the terrorists , Islam , jehad and muslims. If its alright to question the tenets of Islam for the activities of the terror groups and treat muslims contemptuously accompanied with irrational detention of muslim youth then it should be equally right to push all the people behind the bars who created mayhem in Ayodhya over Ram Janam Bhumi issue and destroyed Babri masjid. If not terror then what was it? Like always, all of us should gear up our bias instincts towards all the hindus who were involved in the gory incident.Should not we?



Remember Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam? Surely , everybody does but the question wasn’t asked to check your memory , it was to remind his visionary ideas , scientific accomplishments and above all his position of an ex first citizen of India- The President. Was it just a token attempt to represent India as a secular power at the worldstage?



Racial profiling is one out of the sea of issues which divide us . Bias is the only irrational answer to these problems.



Why cannot we think of progressing as India , why cannot we nullify Strachey’s thinking, why cannot we think of people as human beings, why do caste , language ,religion , class , gender take the better of us ?Why? On a lighter note , it looks like we were not designed to live together by almighty ( Found another irrational excuse to the entire problem).

 
P.S.  This time around  I have got published in college magazine . The first piece in the english section it is. The info is for those of you who have an access to MCMz college magazine. This piece was not considered worth it ..guess I should have worked a little more on it or probably its too radical for them to publish it in a college journal but thats how I feel and thanks to blogger, I can make a handful of people read this either on their own or forcibly :)