Now why am I talking about this? This was an historical event which; nowadays is politicized for selfish purpose. The state of Karnataka has its unique flag; which one can see at most places. But in recent times; its actually a mockery; with the Rajyotsava only belonging to auto rickshaw wallas and cab drivers. The meaning of patriotism is lost. Now this state festival is celebrated with a sense of hatred towards the arch-rivals; the Tamils. No; it would be a blunder on my part if I say people harbour this hatred. Its all created by the corrupt politicians for their selfish reason; people are living in harmony. Who could forget the 1992 Cauvery riots; where innocent people were victims?
There are a couple of so called Pro-Kannada organizations which have cropped up in recent times. They are self appointed guardians of languages; having ridiculous demands like forcing local language in schools, corporate offices; demanding renaming of Airports; roads and other public infrastructure. Its funny to notice that these self-appointed guardians were once underworld criminals and were in Most-Wanted list.
How come the patriotism all of a sudden? One who indulges in criminal activities; how can you claim yourself patriotic towards the state; when you were not patriotic to the country? And who gave them the authority to police common people?
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Images from photos.ibibo.comObserved the pictures above? That's the state flag. And one can see such flags on high rise glass buildings around Bangalore. One can see these flags on corporate offices, malls, star hotels. Know the genuine reason? This flag protects the buildings; from the stones hurled at those glass facades. Few anti-social elements keep waiting for an opportunity to turn any issue to state issue; they somehow knot any god forsaken issue as a threat to the language!!!! - like when actor Dr. Rajkumar was kidnapped; when the same actor passed away.....what the heck was the relation between patriotism and he being kidnapped or passing away? These guardians also indulge in holding corporates to ransom on the pretext of showing useless fanaticism.
Just wait for a chance, behave atrociously; damage public property and the whole state limps; while the common man suffers for no fault of his; while the per day economic earnings of the state tumbles down....
Is this called patriotism; which is inconvenient to people and against the interest of the country?
Another news that was shocking was when MNS chief insisted that each MLA swearing in wake of the Maharashtra elections must do it in Marathi. Where has the basic human right gone? Its a constitutional right that the swearing in can happen in any of the 15 languages that is officially recognized as preferred by the candidate.
All these drama when our Bhai is silently intruding into our border and holding its claim on Arunachal Pradesh. Peculiarly; India is not only soft but also pretends as if all the provocations have gone unnoticed. China has been sending signals to show their dominance; cross-border incursion into Arunachal Pradesh; issuing stapled paper visas to Kashmiris; showing Kashmir as an independent nation; setting up earthquake monitoring station at the foot of the Everest and objecting PM's visit to Arunachal Pradesh. The reaction of India towards all these has been confusing. Our external policies are not strong enough; coupled with our politicians selfishness and shortsightedness; which has compounded the problem.
What with each one indulging in petty cat fights; it sure has compounded. Well, how many of them would know the North Eastern states and their capitals?
PS : It is with an intention to accept all sort of views that I have not moderated my comment. I genuinely believe that I have no authority to moderate anybody's views; so the comments can be posted free with no restrictions. I would appreciate if my comment box is not misused. Thank you.
Excellent blog. We are paying for the mistakes of our forefathers. After independence, Gandhi asked the Congress Party be dissolved. We did not take his advice seriously. Another mistake is not having established a national official language at the time of framing the constitution. The biggest mistake was creating states on the basis of language. This started with creating Andhra Pradesh from Madras State. Another mistake is not treating Kashmir as part of India and giving it a special status.
ReplyDeletesuch an informative post Insignia...our politicians have made a joke out of most of the issues and sentiments for their own benefit..
ReplyDeleteflag to protect the building from the so called sadist gundas? such a shame na...
I did see the MNS people hitting Abu Azmi for taking an oath in Hindi... well I had to leave my work half way and return home from south Mumbai as soon as I got the news...why did i vote? to get scared of these people?
completely agree with the second last para and the last one..amazing write up..thank u for sharing..
PS: I know a long comment from me this time, but I had to mentioned all these things related to ur post..
i said the same thing some time back.we made a big blunder in 1947.bludy big.appointing nehru.adopting a mirage of other country lawas.just doing all this state creation work in a haste.good freedom fighters dont necessarily make good statesman.and all this is a results of that blunder only.anyways i guess this will go on for another 30 years and then utter chaos.india will be on brink of collapse.and then we will do what is required.till then lets shit in our own toilets..free
ReplyDeleteHello, Insignia!
ReplyDeleteA very eloquently written post. And on a personal level, informative, too. I have been guilty of not being updated with recent occurrences.
Anyway, there is nothing to disagree here, except for that I do not blame only politicians for the communal divide.
A simple example, which I had given some time in the past was of '2 cats and monkey'-story, wherein, the monkey on pretext of solving dispute between the two cats over division of a cake, takes advantage and cheats the cats through making them envious of each other. What is the 'conventional' moral of the story? "Do not fight, and be sensible" and not "be honest, judicious, and do not take advantage of gullible people by making them fight!". ;)
But, there is another fundamental difference (at least as reflected by the views in your post) between how you and I view people in general ('the common man'). I do not consider common man to be largely nice, considerate, benevolent, egalitarian, peace-loving--basically, virtuous at all! Whereas, you seem to think of common man like that. :) Correct me if I am wrong in judging your opinion on this issue.
During my graduation, I had been discriminated against to an appreciable degree for not being able to speak Marathi. So, I thought certain people have 'Mahrashtrian v/s non-Maharashtrian' bias. But then people who could speak Marathi, and were Maharashtrians by birth and parentage, were somewhat discriminated against for being from urban areas like Mumbai or Pune!...
...Then, there was polarization between people of various castes!
ReplyDeleteThen, I saw an absolutely mind-boggling phenomenon! Brahmin students would argue, which of the sub-castes among them was the greatest!
Then, once I heard an argument between Jains, if digambar or shwetambar were superior!
Then there were arguments as to whether Pune people spoke better Marathi or Nashik people!
Our entire class had been divided into 4 batches. And then there would some friction on account of this division of batches as all the batches would want to be seen as the 'best'.
Amidst all these ridiculous arguments, and division of people, a few factors were always constant. If I would belong to community 'A' and you to 'B', I would always fight for the perceived greatness of A, and you would always do that for B. It would never so happen that I would argue with you stating how community A was rotten, and I was unfortunate to be part of it. At least we would never fight on it! I mean, it sounds ridiculous, but is it really ridiculous? Second common factor was a genuine hostility and/or malice towards 'other' communities to which one would not belong. Though sometimes it would not become manifest as it would be socially inappropriate. Third common factor was a total absence of a 'monkey' that would make the 'cats' fight.
The only thing I'm hinting at is that even in absence of any instigating factors, people take upon themselves certain group-identities. This they do without pausing to think if they genuinely identify with the ethos of the group to which they are surrendering their allegiance?...
...I'll give you another example. You and I are born on the same day at two different hospitals, just 2 km away. For the time being you're a male (okay?). Now we grow up together, play cricket together, study together. But there is a complicating factor we do not realize. Between those two hospitals there was an international border running. Now our respective countries go to war against the other. Is it logical to expect both of us to suddenly turn our guns towards each other and kill each other only because someone had drawn some lines on paper, to make a strip of nondescript land an international border? Would I feel greater solidarity with you, or with someone living 1000 km away, whose face I had never seen?
ReplyDeleteThis is partly, in response to what is possibly happening in Arunachal Pradesh. But with this example, I mainly wanted to point out how dependent on chance (luck/destiny) our circumstances of birth could be! And that is why any cohesive feeling guided only by circumstances of birth, in itself is an inappropriate factor to clump people together. I could be in extremely minority position on this, but that also includes nationalism. :)
You would find some of these ideas in this post:
Communalism (click)...
...If you're short of time (which you are :) ), I'd recommend you to read this post on Communalism, before all others that I have recommended. Because you would find it almost in continuation with my comments here, and also that, it would be most relevant to the issue you've tried to cover in your current post.
ReplyDeleteBut a small warning would be that it might sound radical, and would require you to be open minded, without taking anything as a personal attack. Also please very much do read the comments. You'll find many new ideas and facts in them, that you might have been unaware of before.
Anyway, in most of what I wrote above, I was not exactly disagreeing with you, only trying to point out something you might have not thought about before.
I only hope, I am able to add something to your understanding of the fundamental problem, which lies in the human psychology (including you and me), and not the kind of politicians that have entered the legislature. :)
So, your wish for disagreement was semi-fulfilled. :)
TC.
PS: I'm opening another avenue for communication, especially so that you do not have to give responses you might not want to give on a public forum. But then you can respond here itself if you're comfortable.
PPS: A reason for my posting such a long comment could be my envy of Stupidosaur's comment's length elsewhere. ;)
Hi SG,
ReplyDeleteThank you for the comments. Yes, the biggest blunder that was done was creating states based on linguistic groups. Grave mistake. Thanks again.
Hi Neha,
ReplyDeleteYes, you read that right. Flags to protect the building, its so disgusting!!
And that was such a thought provoking statement that you made. Why did you vote? To get scared of these people? But such is the state of affairs.
And your comment is not long enough yet :-P You need to compete hard to make yourself the longest comment ever...:-P
Hi soin,
ReplyDeleteI know its scary, But lets just hope things turn for everyone's good.
Thank you for your comments.
Hi Ketan,
ReplyDeleteThanks much for all your views :-)
Thanks Insignia for your reply to Ketan. Keep it that way. All your other readers love it. In other words, please don't engage him. Thanks again.
ReplyDeleteEXCELLENT...I was just about to write a post on this after what happend yesterday in Maharashtra Legislative Assembly. I agree with you...India is surrounded by enemies, but instead of strengthening our forces and staying united...we (as in the politicians) are fighting amongst themselves and weakening the nation internally...
ReplyDeleteand as u said forget about knowing north eastern states and their capitals...our people were under the impression that our football captain baichung bhutia is a chinese or a nepali.Such is the plight of our vast nation...
lol... :D I'm still laughing over your phlegmatic approach towards a 'novel' comment. :P :P :P he he heee...
ReplyDeleteWell, talking about the post, it was worth reading really. These issues when read or seen on tv are blood curdling. In today's news paper I read about those MNS scumbags being felicitated for their so-called patriotic (read chauvinistic) approach in the legislative assembly.
Dunno when these idiocies are gonna stop?
Very intense post. Hats off! Keep writing! :-)
The same thing is happening with Raj Thackeray. But in his case, no matter how lethal he portrays himself to be. He doesn't have the 'sicilian' character:)
ReplyDeleteYou know, in the end, it all come down to money matters.
Chinese incursions, political bashing and even hopeless behaviour in those sessions.
Don't they even know/care that they're on live t.v
People talk about a Country's growth,How our Democratic movement is paying way for a better tomorrow.
In the end, even bureaucrats would feel they're doing nothing wrong. Democracy and freedom are mis-used words.
Hi SG,
ReplyDeleteI did read Ketan's comments/views. The sad part is I dont have time to engage and respond to his thoughts. Hectic schedule at work!!!
Hi Gayathri,
ReplyDeleteThank you. I agree with what you say.
Its sad.
Hi Karthik,
ReplyDelete:-| I am not finding time to respond to the heavy comments. It requires lot of strength and time to do so :-|
When these idiocies gonna stop? Oh I wish we knew the answer. Thank you. Glad you liked the write up.
Will keep writing as long as you folks read me :-)
Hi kish,
ReplyDeleteAgree to what you say. Money and fame and power matters; as long as they get these; why would they care if they are on Live TV or in front of international heads?
Democracy and freedom are really misused. Now coming to think of it, we have achieved independence; but freedom?
insignia,
ReplyDeleteI want to receive proper response to my comments, so they will always be to the point...i will never in my dream think of competing in this field...nor I will make your blog a place for my discussion with others...I have my space to do so and i will use that...:)
Neha,
ReplyDelete:-) Thanks
I din t know abt the flag..thanks for sharing :) The latest news is Thackeray has asked his MLAs to express regret inside the Maharashtra Assembly for their behaviour,however the morons won't apologise for assaulting Abu Azmi. Even if they did, will it make any difference?..dont think so. Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first..but here, its hate for people other than your own religion/caste/state .. as somebody asked,"If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?" ..
ReplyDeleteHey Rohit,
ReplyDeletePleasure :-) Yes, I read about it. Its not about them apologizing, its Mr Raj who is playing the game here.
Hahahaha...that's a nice..:-D
mistakes have happened.. no use of talking abt them.. jus try to rectify them..
ReplyDeleteYou said it right Vishnu. Hope things works for good
ReplyDelete