I am proud to be an Indian. And I am proud to be a Keralite. Don't ask me too many reasons for that, as I might not be able to come up with many. But the most important fact or reason is that "I just happened to be born there"...
India is a diverse country and I guess the regionalism is more in this country than in any other part of the world. If we think hard and compare us with other parts of the world, we might even wonder how come a diverse country like ours survived in one piece for so long. I don't know. And I pray to god that it remains like this...
Most of this regionalism is visible in Politics, where petty issues like sharing water from a river or creating a railway division is done with the motive of improving the life of their own region and using it to win elections. Is there no other way to impress people other than hurting other people?
Is this the right way? I am sure this is not. But then, how can we ever come out of this situation? Or is this going to be a problem which is just getting ready to explode into gigantic proportions? The glimpses of these are already visible, like blocking the train to the rival state or blocking the water flow using a dam...
Media has a huge role to play here. While projecting the regionalistic aspects during celebration of a national win like World cup win, are we sending the right message to the society? We need to celebrate our local heroes, but not to the extent that people interupt the normal life as in the case of prince of Kolkata. What we have to do is, we need to sell the stories of heroes from other parts of country also. Project them as Indians. Even that will inspire a generation to go for whatever they want to be. And more importantly, that will give that sense of being and Indian first to the society...
May be, the only way to change this is by changing oneself as I don't know if the attitude of politicians or media guys will change easily. When I look at myself, I am also as regionalistic as any other. Or am I calling myself a regionalist just because I am proud of the achivements of my state. No, I don't think that is a good reason to term myself as a regionalist. But if I hate someone just because he was born in another state or speaks a different language, then I am one of the cancerous cells of this country...
We must change our attitude and stand together for our country and think that we all are Indians first...
God save my country!!!
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