I was not born the time India became a sovereign nation. Nor
did I witness the China war, the East Pakistan conflict or the Emergency. I was
a toddler when insurgencies brew in Punjab and not even in my teens when Babri
Masjid was knocked down. I will agree that it has been my self- driven need to
know about my socio-political surroundings and an insatiable thirst for history
as a subject. But what is disturbing is that how many people of my age chose to
update themselves with India post 1947.
One of the arguments made by Ramchandra Guha in his scholarly
book- India after Gandhi, is why the history textbooks of India stops abruptly
after 15th August 1947 with only small references made to the Goa
liberation. I second this sentiment. The constitution, local self government
and the legislature are a small part of a small annexure called the Civics text
book; treated so insignificant that it was reserved for last day look before
exams (or so it was in my times). The transition from the Nehruvian economy to
the post ‘91 liberalization came in an even smaller textbook of Economics. Sadly
this book also failed to capture the License Raj era; so one day in the 50’s we
were a socialist economy building the dams and steel plants (the temples of
modern India), next in ’77 we threw out Coca-Cola and IBM and the day after
that in the 90’s we got in Coca-Cola and IBM to make us the 2nd
fastest growing economy in the world.
While these thoughts resonate my mind in a lot of ways- what
got me to write them down was a recent interaction and some research I did to
verify why this was happening.
It has been just over a week after the Rahul Gandhi and
Arnab Goswami saga unfolded on TV and the reactions on how and what was said
and what should have been said are still high. Amidst the discussions on at
work, I stumbled upon a line asking what
should Rahul Gandhi apologise for; there have been so many riots in India. What
was so special about 84 riots?
Though it was not my argument; I simply could not refrain
myself from the discussion even as I could sense there was a bagful of ignorance
to plough through. My question was pretty simple- no doubt any of you were even born when the riots happened, but what as
per you all were they all about? The answers I got were both hilarious on
one part and raising a concern as well. Indira
Gandhi made derogatory remarks against a Sikh religious leader... some sardar
ending in‘walla’- Indira Gandhi had called some Sikh saint a terrorist and the Sikhs
retaliated by killing her- Indira Gandhi sent some police into Golden temple to
catch terrorists and so there was rioting, Operation Blue Star- AC ka ad hai
kya???
As much as I was taken aback, I could not help clarify that
it was a chain of events leading to the assassination followed by riots which
involved some Congress leaders in the fore guiding mobs. Okay, but why should Rahul apologise? He said na that I was not even
born then. Needless to say that a man of 40 was most definitely born then;
but what was ignored here was that it was moral responsibility for party
actions was being demanded much on lines that Modi is being asked for in the
2002 case. Finishing touch came in a statement- I’m not into politics so I don’t
know much.
This incident involved people who are 20 something and
voters in this land of the largest democracy. The Congress campaign is stating
that 50% of the country is under 30. If this is the awareness about our own
country and its state- what are the young turks planning to vote on?
I am not sure who should be blamed or is there anything to
blame at all? This part of our country’s history is not written in text books,
politics is a dirty and dynasty driven business, TV has Sitcoms and social
media always has dancing kitten videos to entertain GenY. Until someone wants
to take it seriously by interest- there is no reason or mens to know it.
But I don’t know, somehow we know more about United States
than India. Though when I probed these set of people (until I got ‘kya subah
subah bore kar rahe ho...) I got some winners as well- the tallest waterfall
was Niagara, Kempe Gowda Airport was my mythical creation and Chhattisgarh (like
Raigad, Rajgad) is a fort.
Bottom line, I know it is much cool to know all about the
latest gadgets, hottest house DJ and even every word of what Pitbull yaps in
his song and say India is in its state due to corrupt Politicians; somehow it
is our own ignorance and neglect that we have such people deciding our fate.
