What is Indian ?

Winston Churchill once said of India – ‘ India is a geographical term. It is no more a united nation like the equator ’. Churchill was also of the belief that while Pakistan would flourish, India was doomed to disintegrate and fail. Churchill, with all his hatred for India was probably talking logically. India is probably the most unnatural country of the world. A closer look at nations around the world shows that it is either shared ethnicity, faith, history or culture that forms the bedrock of their nationhood.

This isn’t true for India. India was born out of ideas – Democracy, Equality and Secularism. In August 1947, the two countries that were born poles apart in this sense – Pakistan was formed on the basis of religion, India inspite of religion. While the states that formed Pakistan were somewhat culturally similar, saving East Pakistan which seceded in spite of the common religion. India, on the other hand although predominantly Hindu is home to many religions, numerous ethnicities and plethora of cultures. But, instead of all these differences India has managed to survive. It hasn’t been easy though, India has faced bloody militancies and secessionist movements in it’s six decades since Independence. The issues ranged from language to religion, economic issues to ethnicity. And yet India has sufficed.

But I ask you what I ask myself – Is there such a thing as a pan-Indian identity ? What is Indian ? Imagine a farmer and chances are you’ll visualize a North-Indian wearing kurta-pyjama, toiling in the heat with a tractor/plough. But, farmers in the North-East or the South of India don’t look like that. Talk of an Indian dress, there is none – Kurta-Pyjama in the North, in the south it’s something else and in the North East, it’s entirely different. In bigger cities, the boundaries are blurred – everybody dresses the same, everybody listens to the same music, holds similar views and lives together. Theirs’ is an entirely different culture, outsourced from the West and until recently aped entirely. But, it’s still not an Indian culture because India is not just about big cities. Even a seemingly heterogeneous Bollywood has been unable to portray Indian identity. Before, the movies were almost entirely about North Indians and Mumbaikars and now the movies only represent the metropolitan culture.

So, is there anything such as pan-Indian ? The answer is No. And it’s not a bad thing either. In order to fulfil this idea of an Indian identity, we have aped the West and produced clones. We cherish this new found identity because it is a quick fix solution. But rather than using this cosmopolitan culture as a bridge between the multitude cultures in India, we seem to have abandoned the indigeneous culture altogether. We must remember that India is different fro other nations. It will look different, it is supposed to be. Our nation was formed on ideas and these must be the cornerstones of our nationhood.

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