norance is not • 155

Being truly Indian means possessing indepth knowledge of the country, and not just of one's state

more disrnrbin g about the i\fombai -D e lhi axi s' gen eral disim erest in anything east or sou th.

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co Chennai, one o f t he h ottest cities in lndia during the stmliller. Although built alo ng the coast, seas ide Chennai o nly seems to get the cool sea breeze in wi nter. Without this respite, the sweaty heat lasts lo n g inco the night, a nd on the hottest of days everything see m s to radiate the stm's warmth.

The Indian media is now flush with stories of the rising s um mer and the impending monsoon a lo n g the west coast. For Chennaiker s however, the m o n soo n is still at least six m onths away. While wa tching India's plethora of news channel s, I can't help but se nse a d eep disconnect between the India of people's minds, and the modern geographic boundaries. Listening co n ews emanating from Mumb ai and Delh i, it wou ld see m th at India doesn't extend any further east or south tha n the \'{/estern G hats. O f c o urse, the b iggest, m ost important n ews so ofte n o c curs in cena:es o f population - this is true even in AustraLi a, where nearly all national news program m es are produced in Sydney or Melbour ne. However, there is something altogether

Many years ago, an acquai n tance o nce cold me that all Indians speak Hindi 1 challenged him o n th at, s aying that the Mah l speakers of 1v[inicoy lsland , or t he T ibe tea n lan guage-sp e a ki ng people of Arnnach al Prades h might argue othenv ise To this be replied, "Yeah, but they're not really Indian". I was aghast - how could be simply w r ite off t housands, poss ib ly millions of people, as " not Indian" , simply because chey didn't look o r sound like hin1? And in a couna:y like India, which prides itsel f on plmalism? I d ared to st o ke the fi.re by suggesting th at if chose people aren't Indian, perhaps India sh ould give chose territories u p. Needless co say, the fury that swelled in his eyes in fo rm ed me t ha t n ow would be a good tim e to s top callcing. Unfortunately, this was an extreme manifestatio n of a widespre ad problem which I was co encotmter many times again.

Like most prejudices, this one is based o n ign ora nce. But at what cost? A trigger i ssue for many India ns is the Kashmir conf'licc. Yet how man y Indians know whic h la nguages are spoken in the disputed territo r y? How many peop le could locate Gilgi c on a map? D oes a n yo ne actually know the current status of the co nA ict at che Uni ted Nations? Or do we just kn ow th at it's "ou rs", not "thei r s", and t hat's why we should fight? In his excellem book S1tperp01JJer, Rag hav Bahl speaks of the "siege mentaLicy" of Indians; t hat is, a deep suspi c io n of th e countries which occupy India's borde rs, a n d a knee- jer k hostility to any action b y them. Thro ugh the sweep of history, Bahl makes sen se o f w hy this bas d eveloped But as lndia emer ges as a superpower, it is time for all of us to understand

The monsoon , although much less vo la tile than the Kashmir conflict, is a case in point.

A quick survey of m y fairly educated , reaso n ably worldly contacts fro m the weste rn an d n orthern states revealed chat all but o ne were b lissfully Lmaware that India experiences more tha n o n e monsoon ea ch yea.L

A recenL commercial for Tbe Hindtr newspaper played o n this, by as king people to name India's vice -president a nd Hrithik Roshan 's pet nam e. For t h e purpose of th e comm e rc ial, m ost people could iden tify only the laLter. Taking insp iration from this, I dec ided to case a wid er net w ith my research, to examin e what a selectio n of Mumbaikers a nd D elhiites know about India today In m y q uizzing, few kn ew the capitals of Tri pura or Meghalaya, and no n e that H yderabad was once an ind epende n t state, fo rcefully inc orporated into India by rnilitar)' action. Two p eop le weren't aware that Chhactisgarh was now a state of its ow n , two more thought th at Delhi was in U ttar Pradesh! A nd no-o ne was

The asiatic faces of Arunachal Pradesh aware that India fought a short war with Portugal over Goa, i n w hich 22 Indi_an servicemen died, and whi ch is still referred t o in much foreign literature a s a n 'annexation' or an 'i nvas ion' Now there's som ething to get angry abom!

History and policies aside, the poim is chat we a U need to start recognizing India as a whole 28 sta t es and 7 unio n te r ritories? \'{le should b e able to name t h e m all, p l us their capitals And we should be able to call them all Indian; o therwise maybe we shouldn 't call ourselves Indian Things a re definite ly improving; the days w h en people called fo r Dravida Nadu or KhaListan are now bm a m e m ory. However ic has been. shown throughout histo r y tha t se p aratist g r oups thrive on exclusion, so I worry when I hear of ignoranc e o r outright hostility to India's various minorities, some of whom have a legi ti ma te axe to grind. W/e need to know abo u t India because kn owledge is power, a nd if Jnd ians are knowledgeab le, the n. we will be powerfol.

Ok, so I shouldn't say 'we', beca u se I'm n ot really lnclian Bue at the very least, in September, w h en everyone e lse is celebrating the en d of the m o n soo n , spare a thought for us down in hot-as.Hades C h en n ai, whe re we know tl1e teal meaning of the phrase 'Indian Summer'!