Think People Think

NATIONAL INTEGRITY-golden letter words in any country’s diary of “Great Speeches By Political Leaders”. It is the most common topic given for any debate, any speech competition and tea parties of the intellectual working class of our country. Following the trend, B.I.T put up the same topic for the extempore competition in the youth festival.
Variety of students came up with the same points –“different flowers forming the subparts of the same garland”, “unity in diversity” etc.

My first question is, where does the word unity hold when we have already mentioned diversity before unity? Unity does not lie in diversity. Flowers of various shapes cannot form a perfect garland. What unity do we boast about when we mention Maharashtra or Gujarat before India when asked about our native place. Why cannot we talk of India and not our individual states. We cannot stand Bihar and Madhya Pradesh not being divided. Why divisions when we shall still belong to India. Or maybe… Bihar will become a part of Bangladesh. To top all anomalies we cannot even stand nature benefiting 2 states-the Cauvery issue. We honour the army above all-even that has divisions-gorkha rifles, maratha unit etc etc. These flabbergasting issues really allows us to talk about national integrity.

The recent uproar over the incendiary reservation issue- it does prove our stand on national integrity. Our political leaders never felt shy of boasting how their respective parties stood for all castes and creeds of society. That is why we need to have reservations. My primary question-why do we need to call a particular caste or tribe as scheduled-just because some part of the population is financially backward? We have school dresses so that there is no distinction between kids but we have reservations to identify who is forward and who is backward. What is the basis of this classification-educational levels….nah, mental strength or physical disability…….no ways. Vote bank politics…………correct answer. Ludicrous! This gives us a right to praise India’s integrity.

All the candidates without fail mentioned the whole episode concerning Prince-the kid who fell into a gorge. Each praised his /her state for the number of yagnas and lachrymose performances by them for the safety and well being of the child. Who cares a fig about the country’s future falling into a gorge. We wanted that kid’s life to be saved and beside our house, in our neighbourhood, each day a kid dies of malnutrition, leave aside the figures for the whole of India. Even if we save the life of that one kid we shall be doing a great favour on humanity. We are not bothered about that because it does not bring in publicity. Egregious! Who can stop us from talking about national integrity.

The time has come when it is imperative to take national integrity from the pedestal of debates and discussions to emotions. The time has come when Republic day and Independence day do not signify holidays and parties. The time has come for us to realize that a 9-5 job and 20000 p.m. is not what we are living for. We have to rise to the situation. Sitting comfortably and recriminating the hegemony for every wrong that is done is easy enough, but it takes guts to stand in the political arena, to withstand the gushes of corruption and take the onus for every wrong that is done. Dr.B.R. Ambedkar had truly said on India’s independence ”We have lost the right to blame the Britishers for every wrong that happens. From now on we are responsible for it.” This applies equally well to the Indian youth. If we cannot do it we don’t even have the right to crib about it.

To admire the moon you don’t have to hold it in your hands. You can do so even by seeing its reflection in the water. To do what our ancestors did, we do not need the Britishers again. We can make national integrity a reality even without them and we shall. The umbilical connectivity with India cannot be severed. As Mahatma Gandhi said” Almost anything you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.” Be like the fountain that overflows, not like the cistern that merely contains. Generally at the end of such patriotic speeches, people write Jai Hind. I shall do that only when I have done something for my country which gives me the right to say “JAI HIND”