India many would say is, and has always been an odd amalgamation of varied multitudes, a land with its own order in a sea of chaos, a country of many countries…
And…
All of them are right.
India is that land that they all talk about, I agree, an imperfect union of its infinite diversity. Or is it?
The reason I ask this question is because, if we dig in deep enough, going beyond the superficiality of language, culture and food, we see something beyond all of that.
India does not seem divided into this many parts, as we all seem to talk about, as I can see only two parts. Or is this snapshot, a representation of the times we live in?
Well, I am not so sure…
Going ahead, firstly, at its core, India is 85%+ Hindu.
The word “Hindu”, I agree has its own varied meanings in the different parts of the country, but irrespective of where you are from the country, the core facet of this faith is more or less same. With faith comes along the other cultural commonalities like festivals and rituals.
So, in a certain essence, wherever you are from in this country, you can go anywhere and match yourself with the value systems of that place with some modifications and even though it is not a perfect match, you can do it because of this commonality of faith.
Pushing ahead in this same vein, if you see the evolution of this faith across the length of this country, you would notice that multiple historical events such as foreign invasions, British rule, partition, the political decisions taken by Independent India’s leaders and the demographic changes wrought by these events are all critical variables that have lead up to this point, we are in today…
There are two levels at which the snapshot of this moment can be seen from,
1) The realistic viewpoint of the ground realities that matter today. (Short Term POV)
a. A state which would administer with stability and perform.
b. One that would facilitate good economic growth with jobs and prosperity for all.
c. One which is performance oriented and pushes hard the wheels of change / progress.
2) The idealistic viewpoint of how societal consciousness would be pushed going ahead in the future. (Long Term POV)
a. What changes in a citizen’s life would be wrought by the state’s policies
b. What kind of society would the state’s policies push the people towards?
c. Peace and Happiness that “all” the people of the land would experience.
Both of these are important and it’s a personal decision which one is given what weight in one’s decision making.
In most cases than not, the first one gets the higher weight and the concept of ideals / identities seldom get mind space, when the basic needs are still unmet.
Next, is what this moment has made happen?
The multitudes I can see, have now become a duality.
The equation is now simpler and the chaos of a multi-party democracy has slowly settled down into, one, a scenario where real federalism can assert itself or two, where a homogeneous monolith would be established.
So, either a central binder which can transform itself into a liquid glue, changing itself in different places, to match itself to each of the other parts, all the while carrying them all together would establish itself…
Or a single common structure that is largely accepted across the entire territory would come about.
It is now a simple two way decision tree.
Change is always uncomfortable, but it is always going to be the only constant and one way or another, even if we keep everything else that is going to happen in this world constant, we are going to see a lot of change here.
So, 2019 is a lifetime chance to observe this fascinating dance of India’s cacophonous beauty.
Yes, if you can only detach yourself from everything and observe… You will notice that the dance of human minds are as fascinating, if not more, as the dance of those celestials in the sky.
I had always been fascinated by these two things, the Human Mind and the Universe, today I guess I know which one I was destined to understand in this life.
My Discovery of India 