Peripheral India

Rajendra Kshetri *

"Bharat", that is India, a very ancient civilization, is the "Wonder that was India". "India", that is Bharat, a 63 years old Nation-State is still struggling to find its "Indianness". There was that inspiring hope, big and not unfounded, the seed of which was sown way back in August 1947 when Jawaharlal Nehru made his 'Tryst with Destiny' with mesmerizing effect. Sixty three years down the line, much has changed. Much water has flown down the Ganges, the Cauvery and the Bhramaputra. Everything has changed and nothing has changed.

The last few months have seen parochialism, fanaticism, and ethnocentrism emerging, once again, on the political landscape of the country. The politics of hate and division, played so brazenly shamelessly by Raj Thackeray of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), it was Bal Thackeray, his uncle who pioneered this brand of politics in the 1970s, strikes at the very roots of "Indianness" of the idea of a unified and inclusive India. Held at ransom was/is Mumbai - the only true cosmopolitan city in the country that symbolizes what India stands for: Unity in Diversity.

But the Thackerays are not alone in the field of politics of hate, division and ethnocentrism. The Lalus and the Paswans and the Mayawatis, the Sangh Parivar, Muslim League and the Caste leaders in the Congress extract power by dividing the society.

Aren't they committing crimes against our society? Aren't they sowing the seeds of Balkanizing India? Aren't they all as good as or as bad as any other terrorist operating in the country? Aren't they all deserved to be booked under the national Security Act (NSA) as was done in the case of "insurgents" and "protesters" in the North-East? How are they any different from the Maoists? Why shouldn't they all be branded and treated as anti-nationals.

Isn't it a pity and/or a wonder that these unscrupulous, corrupt, power-hungry, incompetent politicians who preached and practiced the politics of hatred, violence and division are let loose and allowed to roam and go scot free? Why are they given such long ropes to preach and practice such parochial politics at the cost of national interest?

Why is the Indian State machinery turning a Nelson eye to these disturbingly dangerous trends? Why is 10 Janpath maintaining a stoic silence? Why is somebody on top of the corridors of power in Raisina Hills not doing anything? Aren't they aware what message their silence is transmitting to the young concerned minds of the country: For a few more votes, silence is golden. Let the idea of Indianness go to hell. We don't mind losing the nation but we mind losing the votes. Is this what the idea of India is all about? Is this what Nehru had in mind when he so fondly talks about India's unity in diversity?

The last 63 years have been a living witness to how our unscrupulous, unprincipled and visionless politicians (read bigots) have, mercilessly and restlessly pursued in destroying what could have been a strong powerful, unified, united and inclusive India. They have successfully segmented, nay, fragmented India into "Maharashtra for Maharashtrians" (read "Mumbai for Marathi Manoos"); "Gujarat for Gujaratis"; Bengal for Bengalis (read "Aamar Sonar Bangia"). Is it any wonder, then, that India floats and flounders and remains as Exclusive. India shines as "an area of darkness". A "Wounded Civilization".

India needs another Freedom Movement. Movement for freedom from parochialism and ethnocentrism. Only then will India have her "Indianness" without which the idea of India would be more akin to "the white tiger". India needs political leaders, not political dealers, who could visualize and transcend beyond the narrow parochial paradigm of regionalism, fanaticism, casteism and ethnocentrism. Only then will it be possible-meaningful for men of ideas - to indulge in "imagining India" to conceive a viable Nehruvian "idea of India" so as to have a "better India" for a "better world".

India needs Statesmen, not political pygmies, who feels and cares not only for Mainland India, but more importantly for another India. Peripheral India.

There are realistically two kinds and/or ideas of India. Centripetal India and Peripheral India. Centripetal India thrives, read thrifts, and shines, read whines, in the big bad urbanized metropolis and whips Bharat. Peripheral India bubbles and floats fleetingly on the fringe and is seemingly on the verge of perishing.

Peripheral India is identified not in terms of poverty, economic backwardness and/or geographical/aerial distance from the centre. It is identified/measured solely in terms of 'socio-emotional distance' from mainland India. It is the creation of post-independent mainstream politics of partiality and parochialism. Peripheral Indians are not born as ones but made as ones.

Nothing drives home this point more poignantly than the Union Government's attitudinal treatment towards the country's two most troubled valleys. The Kashmir Valley and the Manipur Valley. The question of separatism has been plaguing both the valleys for the last so many decades. What is interestingly very dangerous and inexplicable is the center's dual idea/policy of dealing with the issue.

Take, for instance, the recent 'All Party Delegation' led by the Union Home Minister which visited not only the Kashmir valley but also, ah! here comes the great Indian policy of partiality and appeasement, the individual houses of the separatists. Could one ever imagine such a similar exercise/scenario in the Manipur valley? No tears - crocodile or otherwise - were shed when Imphal was turned into a second Vietnam in the eighties. No high-powered team visited the valley to assess and accentuate the sentiments of the people.

Is Manipur Valley not an integral and inalienable part of India as Kashmir Valley is? What signal/message is India sending out to whomsoever it may concern? By applying two (dangerously) different yardsticks to the same similar issue? That Manipur, read Peripheral India, is dispensable and expendable and Kashmir is not. That Manipur is less significant than Kashmir - in terms of geo-political and strategic importance. That Kashmir is the "apple of discord" between India and Pakistan. That Manipur, or for that matter, the entire North-east, is the stepson.

The anger of Kashmir youth, according to 10, Janpath, must be addressed. How very true. But where was madam Senora when the Manipuri youth were out in the streets in 2004 protesting against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act - AFSPA? Where was her concern when the entire Manipuri womenfolk were up in arms, following the Manorama killing, against the brutality of the - security forces? Where was her sense of women solidarity when the twelve Manipuri women staged the - now famous as Naked Protest against Indian Army in July 2004? Not a single word of concern and/or empathy, not that the Manipuri women/youth were looking for, for the Manipuri women/youth.

Are they not the women/youth of the country just as the Kashmiri, women/youth are, (for that matter, any part of the country)? Is madam Chairperson, of both the UPA and the all powerful National Advisory Council, aware, even faintly, that a frail young woman of 38, arguably the best known 'Rebel Democrat', with a cause, in contemporary India, is fighting, has been undergoing the "fast-unto-death", for the last one decade to free her fellow natives and country (wo)men from the demonic and draconian arms of AFSPA?

Yes, Sharmila struggles silently and "silence" is what madam Senora thought, and perhaps still thinks, she deserves. Contrast our own Senora's silence to the Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi who, on her trip to India in 2006, thundered: "If Sharmila dies, parliament is directly responsible ... the PM and President are responsible..."

If 10 Janpath comes, can 7 Race Course Road be far behind? The Raisina Hills has been consistently conspicuous by its indifference/couldn't-care-less attitude when it comes to anything other than mainland India. Or else how does one explain its silence, read studied and/or deliberate, when MC Mary Kom won her, read the country's, fifth consecutive world championship titles in boxing in 2010 at Barbados.

Mary Kom became the only boxer in the world to win a medal in each edition of the world championships and the first Indian woman boxer to win five consecutive world titles. No words of congratulations, for doing the Indian nation-state proud, either from 10, Janpath; 7 Race Course or the Raisina Hills, not that the magnificent Mary was looking for. This was in sharp contrast to those earlier equally proud moments in the Indian sports when Sachin Tendulkar became the highest run scorer in both versions, Test and ODI, of cricket; Viswanathan Anand won the world chess championship for the third time in four years;

Saina Nehwal won her second career Super Series in June 2010; and Sushil Kumar won a gold medal at the recent World Wrestling Championships in Russia, not that they all don't deserve. If greatness is to be measured in terms of triumphs and titles, Mary Kom, then, is as equal, if not more, as Tendulkar, Anand, Nehwal and Kumar. It is not Kom's fault that she was born in an obscure peripheral comer of the country and not somewhere in centripetal India.

"India must shine for the poor.. India must shine in the cities and the villages. We want India to shine, and shine for all". That was Dr. Manmohan Singh in his first full fledged news conference as Prime Minister in 2004. Yes! Mr. Prime Minister, and six years down the line, India is shining. We all want India to shine. Who doesn't? Now, in fact, is the season of India shining (what with the success of Commonwealth Games). But the truth is, if it is to be told and must be told, India shines only in and for the central metropolis and cares two hoots for peripheral towns and villages.

The telling tales of the two valleys, Kashmir and Manipur; and the iconic figures of the Indian Sports coupled with the great Indian politics of parochialism and partiality reinforces further what is already evident: All Indians are equal. But some Indians are more equal than the others.