India and the myth of ‘minority’
Whether you think you belong to the Hindu majority, or the various religious minorities of India, I hope you will give due consideration to the concept here.
I don’t know how you would like to define a minority. So let me go with what the dictionary says:
1. the smaller part or number; a number, part, or amount forming less than half of the whole.
2. a smaller party or group opposed to a majority, as in voting or other action.
3. a group differing, esp. in race, religion, or ethnic background, from the majority of a population: legislation aimed at providing equal rights for minorities.
If you are an Indian, or know India even a little, you will realise that none of the above definitions apply to this country. Simply because there is no such thing as a complete, whole India. All we have is a name, a political border and a government.
We live in the middle of a blinding mix of cultures and sub-cultures. Rituals, beliefs, and religiousity mix and melt into each other on a daily basis to create India. The lines that keep our so-called ‘parts’ apart are blurry at best. If you want to be even more practical about it, suffice it to say that they don’t exist. Shashi Tharoor says it better than I could ever do:
For the simple fact is that we are all minorities in India. There has never been an archetypal Indian to stand alongside the archetypal Englishman or Frenchman. A Hindi-speaking Hindu male may cherish the illusion that he represents the ‘majority community’, an expression much favoured by the less industrious of our journalists. But he does not. As a Hindu, he belongs to the faith adhered to by 81 per cent of the population. But a majority of the country does not speak Hindi. A majority does not hail from Uttar Pradesh, though you could be forgiven for thinking so when you go there. And if he were visiting, say, my home state of Kerala, he would be surprised to discover that a majority there is not even male.
Even his Hinduism is no guarantee of his majorityhood., because his caste automatically puts him in a minority. If he is a Brahmin, 90 per cent of his fellow Indians are not. If he is a Yadav, 85 per cent of his fellow Indians are not. And so on.
Tharoor goes on with the comparisons and makes many intersting points. Here’s another example:
A Karnataka Brahmin shares his Hindu faith with a Bihari Kurmi, but they share little identity with each other in respect of their dress, customs, appearance tastes, language or even, these days, their political objectives.
How do I define India, or me, or you, in the middle of this big lovable jungle?
I meet up with my friends in Connaught place most weekends. A Punjabi girl who has the hots for a Mallu, a fat guy who is half Marathi and half Oriya, another Christian (Catholic?) girl whose dad and mom are Malyali and Tamil (I am not sure if the order is right, and I don’t care) who is going out with a Hindu guy who I sometimes differ with on politics.
Who am I again? We all know the answer. It can’t be put into words, but we know it nevertheless.
Vimoh
We don’t define minorities amongst neighbors, friends or communities. I’ve covered the length and breadth of India, and supped and shared roof with myriad cultures, castes, creeds and so on.
My objection is PURELY to what happens in the annals of politics, with people who “define” my co-countrymen as minorities, and keep rubbing it in by appeasement, ignoring or supporting the cause of a few “key” leaders in a segment they’ve chosen to call minority.
Not for reasons of management, upliftment, etc. But because of pure sheer greed
Who says divide and rule went with the Brits.
Vijayendra Mohanty Reply:
February 10th, 2009 at 3:29 am
@Sanjeev Sarma,
My point exactly. The minority they seem to be catering to does not exist. They are selling us a version of India that we don’t live in. Why buy it?
Sanjeev Sarma
10 Feb 09 at 12:32 am
India is a culmination of several distinct entities combined first by force by the British and then by leadership by Gandhi. But after both of them moved on, we fell back to our earlier stage. It remains to be seen how long it will last.
Arby K
10 Feb 09 at 9:05 am
@Arby
First you need to take lesson on history… we were brought together by British is one of the most uninformed sentence. I shouldnt have even cared to answer that.
When ever we have been attacked by the outside forces, we have always been together. True, we were never a single country and in essence never will be, but fact most important is we have always been perceived as a country. From a long long time. When alexander came to this part of the world, he came to conquer India and not Magadha, Porus or other Indian smaller independent parts.
And when ever we have fought with outside forces we have always fought as a single country.
Mayank
14 Feb 09 at 5:11 am
btw if you are interested in getting more comments and having a conversation with ur readers, you should consider switching off the moderation. But i know u never care for ur readership, as you wouldnt have let go of readers while moving the blog.
Vijayendra Mohanty Reply:
February 14th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
I moderate comments because there are some people who badmouth me and others here. I am not in favour of attacking individuals here. If you have something to say about an idea here, your comment will never be deleted. But moderation is needed.
And I never let go of any readers. I informed everyone. Migrated the RSS feeds and the email subscriptions also. Everyone is here.
Mayank
14 Feb 09 at 5:13 am
@ Mayank :
I am not sure what u r trying to convey. U r contradicting urself by saying India has never been a single country and in essence probably never will.
As for the part of India fighting united against all oppressors, history will considerably differ in that point.
Case in point , Third Battle of Panipat where the Mughal Nawab of Awadh fought on the side of the Afghan invader Ahmed Shah Abdali against the Marathas ; Battle of Plassey where the General of Bengal betrayed his Nawab and took the side of the British which led to the annexation of Bengal by the British ; Second Battle of Panipat where the Suri dynasty was breaking up with internal clashes and Hemu was attempting to usurp the throne for himself, when Akbar attacked him.
Saju Reply:
April 9th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
Is it reasonble to believe that we would have been like Europe had there been no British invasion. At least in the sense that a collection of small but rich countries. I am not sure how the style of functioning would have transpired in terms of democracy etc.
If that had happened, it would not have been such a bad thing according to me.
Arby K
21 Feb 09 at 9:11 am