Friday, May 14, 2010

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 :)

14 comments:

  1. I have been reading similar articles for last say 8-10 yrs ,, today i have read ur article ,
    very well written , very motivating , but my biggest fear is tht 10 yrs down , 15 yrs down ("if i m still alive") i will be
    reading similar articles , may be nt by you but by somebody else , i will still appreciate the feelings , but
    max 2 days after reading it , i will forget it , move on , do nothing abt it . Now u mst be thinking such
    a pessimist has read and commented on ur blog.
    The point i am trying to make is , we all acknowledge tht thrz a problem , we need to solve it ,so somebody like
    me is more interested in wht can be done , may be i say what can i do. Solution has to practical in a way that
    most ppl like me are not big time desh bhakt , they wanna do something , but it will be unfair if ppl like me r expected
    to be full time desh bhakt.
    Talking abt Mr Abdul Kalam , his visionary ideas , scientific accomplishments ........ in his every speach he
    use to repeat one point , tht was education , he believed in catching children young , educating thm , mentoring thm
    tht has wht the hint for me , hint which told me how to contribute.
    so lets start moving forward , lets start thinking of ways to utilize ur power , my power , and our power is in the fact tht we r educated
    , thr r lot ppl like u and me , ppl who jst need little push .

    Thanks :)

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  2. as d time changes.....people wll change.....hamse pahle wali generation alag sochati thi....ham alag sochte hain.....hamare baad wali bilkul naye thoughts lekar ayegi......nothing remains intact.......global economy era...cut throat global compition...china threat.....d money s the thing which wll make us move in future...not some almighty power or statue of stones.........dese r just d tools used by sum insane frinsic political authorities.....

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  3. @anonymous...hands down agree with your ideas...educations is definetely the panacea for almost all the problems we re undergoin...ur comment seems so impersonal as its anonymous , i presume , u re somebody from GEC...i wud be happy to know who has spared time to read and then intellectually comment on my blog...:)

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  4. @prabhakar...totally agree that change is the only constant in life...but i sometime question myself...had dea bin no religions , no classes , nuthing like developed or developing nations..what reason would be left to fight then? and d devilish inner voice retorts...competition wud not end , thus , dea wudnt be any peace...weill find ll still find reasons to fight and not focuss on harnessing global potential for development at large

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  5. Na tommy i dnt knw whts GEC :)

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  6. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  7. u ve no idea hw happy i m to find tht itz u! :d

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  8. We live in a nation,

    Where Pizza reaches home faster than Ambulance police,
    Where you get car loan @ 8% and education loan @ 12%,
    Where rice is Rs 40/- per kg but sim card is free,
    Where a millionaire can buy a cricket team instead of donating the money to any charity,
    Where the footwear, we wear, are sold in AC showrooms, but vegetables, that we eat, are sold on the footpath,
    Where everybody wants to be famous but nobody wants to follow the path to be famous,
    Where we make lemon juices with artificial flavors and dish wash liquids with real lemon.
    Where people are standing at tea stalls reading an article about child labor from a newspaper and say,"yaar bachho se kaam karvane wale ko to phansi par chadha dena chahiye"
    and then they shout "Oye chhotu 2 chaii laao....."


    mera bharat mahan... LMAO...

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  9. pheww....we the indians...
    super liked the writeup though.. :)

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  10. :) thnx sahila!..i gt ur blogz link thru sonali dallaz profile ....hope to ctch up wid u smday n knw d gal behind dose bful verses!

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  11. Isha, Ladoo prahji is damm right. Its actualy illiteracy which is the root cause of all the probs, or rather is should say Hunger and poverty, and education is the most important tool to remove that poverty.
    Always remember, a starving man has no religion. All that he cares for is how to get his daily bread, and this is the weakness that is exploited by the radicals.

    HAve you seen that ad by a snacks company called "Hippo" which was aired some times back?
    Well it was spot on as it said,"Duniya ki saree burayion ki jad hai bhookh". Though the ad took that as humour, the truth in it was pretty evident

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  12. You ve succinctly n wonderfully put ur ideas fwd thru dt ad!...For a moment i forgot abt d writeup i penned down...u re observant dushy...nw m relieved...u wudnt risk pplz life being a doc:)

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  13. hahaha, thankq dushman...:p

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