National unity A gift from the British

The language issue is again being raised in Maharastra. Vande Mataram is again a subject of debate. The Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh first says that Biharis and UP citizens are not welcome in Madhya Pradesh and then retracts his statement under pressure. We then talk of national unity, patriotism, communal harmony, and yet religion, caste, languages and social status continue to divide us. Some groups keep harping about Hindutva and each rightist organization depending on the level of extremism it practices gives a different meaning to Hindutva. A moderate has his view and an extremist his. Nobody has yet been able to give a unanimous view or opinion on this subject.

History being my favourite subject since school days, an interesting thought crossed my mind a few days ago. Having read Indian history from ancient times, I realised that India had never been united from the times of the Indus valley civilization until the British arrived at our shores. We have had dynasties ruling the sub continent like the Mauryas, Kushans, Guptas followed by the Khiljis, Tughlaq’s and the Moghuls, just to name a few. But at no time in history was our country one in terms of territory. Even rulers like Shivaji whom many look as the symbol of unity ruled a small portion of the subcontinent. The entire subcontinent consisted of various kingdoms ruled by different rulers who spent most of their time fighting against each other in trying their increase their land area, and no dynasty however powerful lasted more than a couple of hundred years.

Things only changed since the British arrived at our shores. It is they who began annexing territory after territory vanquishing the local kings and lords and uniting the entire land mass from Afghanistan to Burma and beyond and from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, except for a few enclaves that were held by the French and the Portuguese. They streamlined the administrative and the taxation system, built roads and railways, improved connectivity and thereby united the entire sub continent into one India.

I definitely will not say that this unity was brought about by the British out of love for India. They did it out of their own self interests and for better administrative purposes. Yet this arrangement sowed the seeds of unity and helped our leaders of the freedom movement take forward their resistance towards foreign rule. It united the people of the entire sub continent as one to fight for independence. The very instruments of state which were created by the British helped our leaders intensify and finally win the struggle for independence. The British who were always known for their policy of divide and rule, unwittingly unified a nation and invited defeat upon themselves in the end. Just imagine what it would have been today, had the British sat back as overseers, just collecting dues and royalties and had left the administration and rule to the hundreds of Kings and Nawabs in the subcontinent. Some of us would still have been under british rule and others would have been part of a nation called a Tamil Nadu, a Bengal, a Mysore, a Maharastra, a Punjab and so on. Would that have been better? Would we still have our communal divisions? Would we be having frequent wars with each other?. Very difficult to say, but very easy to assume, with our inborn skills of fighting with each other for no rhyme nor reason at times.

The present scenario too does not give out any positive vibes. Each day we hear stories of more divisions. None of us think about the nation, nor do we care. We follow our respective religions like fanatics, trying to impose our wills on the next person and branding any person who does not follow our practices as a fanatic and an enemy and not as a fellow Indian. Each of us thinks of our own local language is superior than that of others, and beat up the guy next to us if he happens to speak in another language. We equate patriotism and nationalism simply to singing a song and call a few others who don’t happen to like that song as traitors. Some of our elected leaders who happened to be children of sweepers just five years ago, seem to possess wealth worth Millions of Dollars in foreign banks today. Nothing wrong in being a sweeper’s son, nor in becoming rich, but it is the way in which this wealth has been acquired We do not ask them from where all of it came from. Just a few people with political connections loot our mineral and forest resources with blanket permissions from our governments. We do nothing, but simply sit back and watch all this happen. For politicians or a party, only the number of votes they can secure in the next elections matters and towards this end religion, caste, languages etc are used as weapons to divide and polarize people. Our enemies from across our borders need to hardly invest any time or money is destroying us. We ourselves are very busy doing that.

For how long will our nation be united? It is very difficult to say, but our collective and over zealous efforts seem to be hastening that possibility. But there is no need to worry. The British or the Americans can once again be called back to re-unite us. Has not history proved that?