What is that one thing without which India would collapse? Become a failed nation? It is a small and simple philosophy something that is so ingrained in us that we take it for granted, it is so basic to or nature that we tend to ignore it and we are ignoring it more than we can handle. I strongly feel the nation needs a dose of messages to reinforce that philosophy. So what is this philosophy which I am building up so much? It is simply Diversity. Our ability as a nation to historically co exist as different people, co exist and flourish in our own cultures and traditions. To be happy living our culture and not trying to impose my culture on others. We are increasingly become less tolerant to diverse points of view, to the extent that even the most feeble sign of descent is crushed upon with such immense force that no one ever dare to oppose the majority opinion.
If you do not believe, here is an example. Just a few days back the editor of a newspaper got the wrath from Shiv sena for expressing his opinion that Shivajis statue should NOT be made in the middle of Arabian Sea and that government should spend its forces in other areas. Such a simple thought. I mean no disregard for Shivaji and have as much respect for him as a national hero as any one else claims. Sadly I do not live in Mumbai but I can safely say that if the government can spend half of the money it plans to use to build the shivaji statue, for developing Mumbai road, drainage etc. The people will never say no and I am sure that the MP from Mumbai will be re elected. And this is just my view, if you do not like it, then fine let us discuss it. But having different view is not incorrect and the way our society is progressing it is not able to tolerate differences in opinion. I feel that the root of this animosity to diverse opinion is our failure to accept that India can become successful only when we sustain our diversity. But diversity should not be misunderstood as minority appeasement, in fact I feel that we staring loosing our openness to diversity from the time we started minority appeasement. Look back at out history, what did the British do? They tried to divide us as a nation to rule successful, and they have been bloody successful at that. Even today we spend millions on weapons to settle Kashmir and India is suffering as it faces other issues inspired/supported by Pakistan, while Pakistan is moving on a fast train to be called as “failed nation”. In a way cricket is a face of our nations (Ind and Pak), see how bad the Pak team is now, from and era in mid 90’s when they were unbeatable. Just imagine a combined India-Pak team no country in the world could defeat us- allrounders like Kapil and Imran bowlers like wasim and waqar, batsmen like sunil gavaskar, javed miandad, fielders like azhar....
