My Idea of India

The King's India Institute was formally inaugurated on January 26, India's Republic Day. It is on such days that the feeling of Indianness reverberates within me. My inner self stokes with an inquisitiveness as to what India stands for me in the 21st century.

Almost 65 years ago at the stroke of midnight hour when India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru delivered his famous 'Tryst with Destiny' speech, not many people were hopeful that India, as it stands now, would traverse such a length of time united. The parting of the British rulers , who encapsulated the diversity and robustness of India in the form of a nation state, was seen as a signal that the disintegration of the country was only a matter of time. The communal violence which accompanied India into her independence only gave credence to such cynicism. However, as history has shown, India has managed to keep her borders intact, notwithstanding the threats posed by terrorism, diverse aspirations of the various ethnic, religious, linguistic and social groups, poverty and social inequality. The diversity of India turned out to be her binding force and the apprehension of disintegration seems nothing more than a cliche now.

It was not an easy journey though. The path of democracy that India embarked upon created the political matrix which held the various religious, linguistic and ethnic groups together. The sense of Indianness has grown in strength with passing time and now the whole world wants to have a share in India's success story. It is now an incentive to be part of India, in whatever form, than to ignore her spread in various spheres of modern life. It is not only the economic success of India which lured the whole world but also her democratic polity, which promotes pluralism. Despite all its shortcomings, India never thought of abandoning democracy. The plurality in India made the politics in the country more vibrant. If nationalism and patriotism were India's strength then it never came in the way of allowing others to question majoritarianism.

I was born at a time when the experiment called India was still at its early stage. Despite several successful  elections, democracy was not as deep rooted as it is now. Poverty threatened the very existence of a young nation. Patriotism and nationalism were yet to give way to pragmatism and rational thinking and India was still not sure whether it could hold on to what it stands for. My first test of Indianness happened when as a seven year old boy I saw the nation burst into celebration after the defeat of Indira Gandhi in the 1977 elections. It was a national celebration and the young mind in me never looked for a regional rationale or a Bengali element to it. I am proud to be a Bengalee but my Bengaleeness was not an incentive enough to abandon or overlook my Indian identity.

Almost three decades after my birth, on the very day when I stepped outside my motherland, I was witness to a situation which only strengthened my bond with India and the idea it stood for. The day I reached London in 1999, a Greek girl asked me how come Bengali is spoken in both India and Bangladesh yet they are two separate countries. It is not an exceptional case though, however, it is not very usual to the homogeneity that the Europeans are used to. Even before I could respond, a colleague of mine from Bangladesh quipped: "We carved out a country for ourselves but they chose to remain with India."

To tell the truth, I was not a bit offended. I visualised myself more as an Indian than a Bengalee. My Bengalee identity lies in the cradle of India and it is  true for all facets of my existence, be it physical, emotional, psychological, political or economic. India lies at the very heart of my identity, not only because I am an Indian by birth but because of the plurality, democratic politics and more than anything else the sense of intellectual excitement she stimulates.

Now with the economic rise of India, there is a well defined trend of reverse migration. Many people who left India to enjoy and explore the opportunities and comfort of the West are now home drawn. It is not unusual at a time when the whole world wants to have a share of India. Despite a third of the world's poor people still living in India and the unexplainable inequalities, India is considered to be the land of opportunities, achieving what she has, despite democratic pluralism. On my part though, I would like to see India from a distance and relish her rise from a different perspective than being sipped into it.

My idea of Indianness became more pronounced ever since I left the country about 12 years ago and Sunil Khilnani's 'The Idea of India', the first book that I bought in London from the Economist Bookshop at Piccadilly Circus, stoked it even further. I wonder whether my sense of Indianness would have been so pronounced and well defined had I remained within her physical confines, travelled to work everyday on a crowded local train from a Kolkata suburb or got stuck in a traffic snarl near ITO in Delhi. India for me is more of a concept which goes beyond anything physical and stimulates my intellectual imagination.

All comments are personal and have no bearing on others.