Grow Up to be an Indian.....

Regionalism is one of the biggest challenges facing India today. We remember that we are Indians only on the 15th of August or 26th of January each year when we sing loudly and clearly the National Anthem standing in the monsoon showers or the chilly wind of January. On any other day we are Biharis, Gujratis, Bengalis, Keralities etc. All the feeling of oneness and unity disappears!
The challenging task of changing the situation lies on the shoulders of the younger generation. Its high time that we crossed the barrier of region and started thinking of ourselves as being one.
To this extent an important role is being played by the various National Law Universities and the new IITs (not to forget the old institutes) across the country. Most of the new IITs have students from regions other than their own. The presence of students from various backgrounds and different parts of the country lend these institutes a national flavour! One would be surprised to find that students defending their institute in Lucknow or Kanpur may not necessarily be from Uttar Pradesh or Bihar or North India but could well be from Goa or Kerala.
Another area where some change can be seen is matrimony where a girl working in Wipro may say that she is getting married to a an engineer in Infosys (or any other professional/non-professional) instead of saying that she is marrying a Tamiliam or a Marathi. Such trends among the youth of today makes one feel that we may start thinking of ourselves as belonging to one large entity rather than in term of small bordered islands! (Chetan Bhagat's 'Two States')
But a day still has to dawn when all of us are human beings first!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I need a break.....

I need a break from some things and one of them is Bandhs. Bandhs are the in-thing in Patna as its nearly election time and each political party calls for a Bandh someday or the other. The funny thing is that two or more parties may want to organize a bandh on the same issue but they call for a bandh on different days in order to protect their individual identities. As a result on Monday we had the BJP-JD (U) combines bandh against the rising prices and on Wednesday, the bandh is organised by CPI(ML) on another raging issue: naxalism. I do not know what fun these parties get in organizing these bandhs. Don't they realize that such bandhs disrupt public life, lead to hugh economic losses (refer to TOI dated 06.07.10) and cause a lot of nuisance? When I was in school, I looked forward to these bandhs as it gave us a day off in the middle of the hectic academic year. By the time I reached college, bandhs of all types became the norm of the day and invariably we would have quite a numb...
Read more

Honour Killings or Dishonour Killings?

Today's newspapers again carry horrifying stories of killings supposedly called 'Honour Killings'. The question is what is honourable about these acts? To a mind like mine they seem to be bringing 'dishonour' upon society. Not delving into specific stories, one would like to focus critically on the reasons behind such gruesome murders. Most of these murders are related to the institution of marriage, specifically inter-caste, inter-religion, same-gotra marriages. And the reasons are sociological. Migration to cities, swallowing up of villages by cities has led to a disintegration of certain customs and traditions which were taken for granted by the earlier generation. Exposure to western culture and changes in life style has brought about a change in the attitude of the younger generation. Working in offices of MNCs one is not bothered with issues of caste or gotra. The choice of a life partner in such cases is governed by emotional and intellectual needs. This is ...
Read more

Net the NET

NET or National Eligibility Test is conducted by the UGC and is a qualifying exam for future lecturers and researchers. With the 6th pay commission the number of candidates appearing has gone up but the number of candidates qualifying the exams has been pretty low. Does this mean that UGC NET is a tough nut to crack? Or are our students not prepared for such exams? well, in most cases the latter seems to be true. Students pursuing their Masters in Universities like JNU, DU clear this exam before completing their Masters. Some at places like BHU take a few more chances. But those at Patna University, Magadh University and other state universities seem to take forever to clear this exam. Where is the problem? Is the syllabus of the state universities not at par with that of the central universities? What are the teachers in the state universities doing in the classroom that the students are left terrified of the NET? What I have observed over the years and specially in the subject of Eng...
Read more