IMAGINING INDIA

[[This is the brief about what I learnt from an unconventional course like “Imagining India” during my MICA days]]

Why can’t I think like this? Why it is forbidden for me? How can I consider one person as the most saintly figure, other as the devil? Why only black or white? Why not grey regions? What situation led someone to be a saint or devil? Is self realization is the only way to learn about right or wrong? Should I follow someone else experiment with truth or I should have my own experiment with life? Am I allowed to comments on saintly figure like mahatma? In 21^st century will we find some more figures, who believe conquering the opponents through truth and non-violence!! Is Nathuram Godse is just a killer or does he have some contribution to this country? Is there any reason justify to kill someone?

Why not they enter into the same temple, I go and worship? If they are not allowed to worship their own god, then what’s wrong to convert into another religion? Why do they namaskar to me even if they are much older than me in our village? And why they don’t respond to me, if I do namaskar to them? Why they are called as Dalit or Harijan? Was that a condescending approach of gandhiji to make them happy? Was Ambedkar’s approach for the upliftment of the lower cast people is fruitful? It’s already 60 years to the independence, is it required any quota system? Or reservation should be according to the below poverty line? If people argued as quota system not required anymore, then why I am unable to see a lower cast guy/girl in a high level educational institute? Where is the root of the stratification of cast or religion? Why all the protocols of Hindu rituals are on the favor of higher cast?? Why don’t people accept the monotheism? Even if all the philosophy behind all the religion tends towards oneness. Starting from “Advaita philosophy” of Hindus to “Allah” of Islamic philosophy to “Ik onkar” of Sikhism to “Dubito ergo cogito; cogito ergo sum” of western philosophy??

Was Jinnah is the only person who is responsible for the India Pakistan division? If we have a “father of nation”, then does Pakistan having any concept of “Baba-i-Qaum”? Is Muslims the only religion in Pakistan? Do they all know how to operate a gun? Do they have a good education system? If we people are patriotic towards our own country India, then what’s wrong if they are patriotic towards their own country?? Why Indian educational systems never give a clear picture of independence story? Why such notion created in our mind that we can’t accept the fact that Pakistan is one more country like other? Will this india-pakistan enmity exist forever? Will this cast system will be eradicated from the society in some day? Can we feel someday as an eternal morning of a spotless mind?

Thousands of dubious questions, some are from the child-hood, some are on the way to explore the world. I was searching for the answers from a long time. “Imagining India” is the course which is able to exonerate few of such questions in my mind. I realized that, I was never allowed to be critic on such things; no one listened about the honest opinion. If it is about religion, about patriotism, about national hero, about holy books, we normally having notions not to create the question mark “Why” in our mind. “Imagining India”, where we are open up to think on such issues and trying to find out the solution for such “Why”.

When I choose Imaging India, I personally felt that it is something similar to Nandan Nilekani’s book “Imagining India”. Something related to the future of India after 10-20 years. After the first class, I got clear that it is all about the difference between historical prospective (facts) and the imagining (fiction) of INDIA.

We had a visit to Sabarmati Ashram, to discover Gandhi more. We critic on many attribute of Gandhi like Saintly figure, hagiography, public figure, Gandhi persuasive communication, strategist arrogance, social anger, stoicism, Leader communication, conviction power, economic lit education, Ashram transparency, Vidyapeeth- Education Institute, Navjeevan Trust – Print media, Gandhi’s proposal of Hindustani language as the national language. We studied Gandhi as the communication point of view, Gandhi’s entrepreneurial aspects, and Gandhi’s Leadership and management quality.

During the course we watched the movie called “India Untouched” about Discrimination of Cast. Which is really unbelievable that some part of India (not some part most of the states); cast discrimination are still exist, followed by feudalism. Even in the basic education which is rights of all, lower cast child are not allowed to sit with their upper cast friends. They are forced to clean the toilets, they are not allowed to take water from the public well, and they can’t go by any vehicles on the upper cast street. Caste practices and un-touchability do exist in Sikhism, Christianity and Islam, and even amongst the Communists in Kerala. In an age where the media projects only one image of “rising” or “poised” India, this film reminds us how far the country is from being an equal society.

Imagining India open up our thought process to create such “Why” in our brain and see the issues with a critic point of view.