How
long can an unhappy India remain united?
Vijay Rana, 23 December 2009, www.nrifm.com
“How
long you can keep this unhappy nation together”, asked one of my
friends during a passionate discussion over the recent events of
Telangana. As I argued that we are a mature democracy and there was
little threat to India’s unity, he snapped again: “That is head
in the sand attitude. Put your hand on heart and tell me one thing
that we have done in recent years to unite the divided people of
India.”
With his anguished words still ringing in my ears, I returned home
and opened Google India news. The headline in the Telegraph said,
‘Telangana leader issues grim warning’. As Andhra people
protested against the proposed break up of their state, K
Chandrashekhar Rao had warned: “in case New Delhi went back on its
word the (Telangana) movement would turn so violent that no police
or military force would be able to contain it.”
After the promise of Telangana, the demand for new states came from
all directions – Gorkhaland, Vidharbha, Poorvanchal, Harit Pradesh,
Bundelkhand, and Bodoland. And the latest is the demand of
Coochbihar to be carved out of the state of West Bengal.
All these demands are based on one and clearly undemocratic
principle that a section of people in a particular state cannot live
with the rest of the people of that state. Therefore, they need a
separate state.
These leaders have now invented a new basis for their separatist
ambitions – discrimination and under development. In a country
like India where resources are scanty and governments corrupt and
inefficient, one could always raise the bogy of discrimination and
underdevelopment.
Until now the basis of such separatism used to be linguistic or
regional culture but now the people speaking same language and
sharing same culture want to move apart. And leaders like KCR are
quite prepared to foment hostility and intolerance to achieve their
separatist goals. It would not be inappropriate to describe this as
internal separatism.
But the lines between interanal and external separatism are fairly
blurred. For example, in the united Punjab first they asked for a
Punjabi suba (province), then it became a demand for separate Sikh
state and then some extremist groups began to demand the sovereign
state of Khalistan. Ten years and 25,000 deaths later we managed to
calm Punjab. We might not always be so lucky.
Another example could be the Muslim League’s demand of Pakistan.
It began with separate electorates. Then the League began to demand
communal weightage in legislative representation, exclusive rights
to represent all the Muslims, internal separation of Hindu and
Muslim affairs and finally the demand of the Islamic Republic of
Pakistan.
We have an influential and powerful class of regional political
leaders who don’t seem to be batting for India. Does anyone
remember leaders like Karunanidhi, Mayawati, Chandrababu Naidu,
Navin Patnaik talking about a strong and powerful India.
They often put forward exaggerated demands before the central
government and have perfected the art of arm-twisting the centre. We
know how Chandrababu Naidu pressurised the NDA government. Thanks to
the pressures of regional chieftains, today an Indian prime minister
cannot freely appoint his own cabinet and has to accommodate
seemingly corrupt ministers of questionable integrity. Does anyone
know what Karunanidhi’s vision of India is? But we know how he
compelled Manmohan Singh to appoint his son and nephew as cabinet
ministers.
With democratic values such as tolerance, reciprocal trust, mutual
respect and inter-faith dialogue deteriorating fast, we have a
growing desire to be small. With such an inept political leadership
it is becoming difficult to construct a coherent and comfortable
national identity. Finally our failure to accommodate and resolve
competing regional diversities might come to haunt us one day.
Meanwhile, our rivals are keenly watching our fratricidal wars.
Recently, the Chinese International Institute for Strategic Studies
drew a roadmap for breaking up India. The plan began with
pronouncement that India “as a nation never really existed in
history”.
The article said, “China in its own interest and the progress of
whole Asia, should join forces with different nationalities like
Assamese, Tamils, and Kashmiris and support the latter in
establishing independent nation-states of their own…Only after
India has been broken up into 20-30 pieces will there be any real
reform or social change in the country.”
India’s warring politicians need to sit together to discuss these
conflicting regional aspirations in a sensible and enlightened
environment. We cannot continue to play political games of setting
people against people, caste against caste and religion against the
religion. The process of internal separatism must be discouraged.
Leaders like KCR might temporarily rejoice at their success, in the
long term it would be the Chinese laughing at us.
Author Dr Vijay Rana is the editor of www.nrifm.com, web’s first
talk radio for the NRIs.
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