A few months ago, Mumbai ended up becoming a victim to politics yet again. Raj Thackeray and the MNS lauched an offensive against all north Indians in the city claiming that they took away the jobs of the local Marathi population. A thousand kilometres down south, a long-time resident of Bangalore verbally abused four men from Lucknow calling them "bloody northie outsiders who don't respect the law" (criticizing them for breaking the law is understandable, abusing their place of origin is not). Meanwhile the water wars between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu got worse...leading to even bigger kannadiga-tamilian clashes on both sides of the state border.
I often wonder, where exactly did we go wrong? Was it the demarcation of borders based upon language? Was it (in Bangalore's case) the sudden boom of the IT Industry and all its side-effects leaving local kannadigas desperate for some kannadiga-ness? Was it just apathy and casual neglect of politicians who capitalized on this sloth? Or was it a combination of all these factors? Maybe. Maybe not. But one thing is certain. This tendency to divide ourselves on the basis of origin has grown remarkably in recent years and shows no sign of stopping.
This tendency obviously existed in the past. The 1947 partition would not have happened without it. On a lighter note, the (in)famous north-south divide was brought about as a result of it. But there was something else that counterbalanced this tendency in those days, at least according to me. In the previous generations, there seem to have been a greater prevalance of an opposite tendency. The tendency to inculcate whatever culture one experiences without compromising on one's own native culture. Does it sound weird? It's not really as difficult as one might suppose it to be. Having never gone abroad, I do not know whether this counter-tendency is unique to Indians. If it is, it becomes all the more important to popularise it. After all, it was this ability of inculcation that has made India the amazing melting pot of cultures that it is today.
For instance, take the example of Sir.M.Visvesvarayya. This man, who has been labelled as the architect of modern Karnataka was born in the village of Muddenahalli in the Kolar district of present-day Karnataka. He studied at Bangalore, Madras and Pune. He then worked for the Public Works Deparment in Bombay, designed a flood protection system for Hyderabad, invented a method to prevent Vishakapatnam Port from soil erosion and was appointed Dewan (administrator) of the Mysore Princely State. As one can see, both his studies and his work took him places. This was in the 1900s. Way before high-speed boeings and airbuses allowed travel from one end of the country to another in a day. Cities like Bangalore and Hyderabad were not the urban metropolises (or nightmares) that they are today and culture shock was probably far more common. But Sir M.V. did not let these things affect him. Unlike so many people today, he did not believe that his entire value system had collapsed whenever he ended up in a new city or region. Instead he just concentrated on getting his work done. Language, culture and food were meant to be taken in stride. He was never caught trumpeting his own culture and trashing anyone else's.
Whenever I hear patriotic activists demanding the abolition of certain languages in schools or attacking other communities, I remember Maasti Venkatesh Iyengar. In these days of kannadiga-tamilian clashes, it should be noted that Maasti's mother tongue was tamil and though he was born in Kolar, he was of a tamilian family. And yet, Maasti is today renowned as one of the greatest poets of 20th Century kannada literature. In fact, most students of kannada would probably know that people called him "Maasti, kannada da aasti" (Maasti - Kannada's asset). Another famous kannada writer V.K. Gokak was a professor of English. Girish Karnad's mother tongue was konkani. Yet both these writers are famous for producing works in kannada. All this seems extremely ironical in today's circumstances but I don't think it mattered much at the time. But just imagine - by politicising certain issues and elevating it to the level of a clash of cultures (as in the case of the kaveri issue) how many writers and poets are we antagonizing and preventing from contributing to our language? Or for that matter, since the issue goes both ways, how many kannadiga writers are being antagonized into rejecting other languages and never adding more to their literature? For me, what matters is that both sides are losing out in this so-called, mountain-out-of-a-molehill clash of languages. By all means, the Kaveri issue must be sorted out. But can it not be done without both sides yelling insults on the other side's language and culture? But I guess people are too stupid to stop listening to politicians.
I can think of several other examples where people have learnt to accomodate new cultures into their lives. I don't even need to mention famous people. My own great-grandfather, a kannadiga by birth, used to deal with the manufacturing of sugar. He first started in Mandya, Karnataka before shifting to the northen sugar belt in modern-day Uttar Pradesh. Based in the town of Mansurpur (near Muzzafarnagar), he was miles away from anywhere near his place of birth or his community. His mother used to visit him occassionally. She could not speak any language other than kannada. But that did not prevent her from sitting with her son's neighbours and somehow attempt to converse. No one knew how she managed it but she always somehow got around the language barrier and converse with her neighbours. She didn't need Abhishek Bacchan and his watt-an ideeyaah cellphone. Similarly, I have either personally known or heard of several people who had biographies such as being born in Mysore, educated at Pune, sent to work at Vizag and retiring to Chennai. They all managed to assimilate all these cultures perfectly well while speaking excellent kannada simply because it's their mother tongue.
There are still people today who are as multi-cultural as shown above but their population is dwindling. This is one community I'm desperate to join but I've still got a long way to go (improving my hindi for a start). Unfortunately, other people do not seem to be interested. On one side we have anglicized wannabe-americans (a group which I was once a part of) who wish to have nothing to do with Indian culture and on the other side, we have narrow minded cultural fanatics who seem to love bashing up other communities (a group I don't want to have anything to do with). If I have to choose between the two, I'd prefer the wannabe americans, but on the whole, I yearn for a greater number of multi-cultural people in society. The interaction of cultures is neither a clash nor a zero-sum game where one culture has to win over the other. India is a splendid place to experience a spectrum of customs, languages, literature and food (the last one being the most important). This isn't an opportunity to be missed.
I often wonder, where exactly did we go wrong? Was it the demarcation of borders based upon language? Was it (in Bangalore's case) the sudden boom of the IT Industry and all its side-effects leaving local kannadigas desperate for some kannadiga-ness? Was it just apathy and casual neglect of politicians who capitalized on this sloth? Or was it a combination of all these factors? Maybe. Maybe not. But one thing is certain. This tendency to divide ourselves on the basis of origin has grown remarkably in recent years and shows no sign of stopping.
This tendency obviously existed in the past. The 1947 partition would not have happened without it. On a lighter note, the (in)famous north-south divide was brought about as a result of it. But there was something else that counterbalanced this tendency in those days, at least according to me. In the previous generations, there seem to have been a greater prevalance of an opposite tendency. The tendency to inculcate whatever culture one experiences without compromising on one's own native culture. Does it sound weird? It's not really as difficult as one might suppose it to be. Having never gone abroad, I do not know whether this counter-tendency is unique to Indians. If it is, it becomes all the more important to popularise it. After all, it was this ability of inculcation that has made India the amazing melting pot of cultures that it is today.
For instance, take the example of Sir.M.Visvesvarayya. This man, who has been labelled as the architect of modern Karnataka was born in the village of Muddenahalli in the Kolar district of present-day Karnataka. He studied at Bangalore, Madras and Pune. He then worked for the Public Works Deparment in Bombay, designed a flood protection system for Hyderabad, invented a method to prevent Vishakapatnam Port from soil erosion and was appointed Dewan (administrator) of the Mysore Princely State. As one can see, both his studies and his work took him places. This was in the 1900s. Way before high-speed boeings and airbuses allowed travel from one end of the country to another in a day. Cities like Bangalore and Hyderabad were not the urban metropolises (or nightmares) that they are today and culture shock was probably far more common. But Sir M.V. did not let these things affect him. Unlike so many people today, he did not believe that his entire value system had collapsed whenever he ended up in a new city or region. Instead he just concentrated on getting his work done. Language, culture and food were meant to be taken in stride. He was never caught trumpeting his own culture and trashing anyone else's.
Whenever I hear patriotic activists demanding the abolition of certain languages in schools or attacking other communities, I remember Maasti Venkatesh Iyengar. In these days of kannadiga-tamilian clashes, it should be noted that Maasti's mother tongue was tamil and though he was born in Kolar, he was of a tamilian family. And yet, Maasti is today renowned as one of the greatest poets of 20th Century kannada literature. In fact, most students of kannada would probably know that people called him "Maasti, kannada da aasti" (Maasti - Kannada's asset). Another famous kannada writer V.K. Gokak was a professor of English. Girish Karnad's mother tongue was konkani. Yet both these writers are famous for producing works in kannada. All this seems extremely ironical in today's circumstances but I don't think it mattered much at the time. But just imagine - by politicising certain issues and elevating it to the level of a clash of cultures (as in the case of the kaveri issue) how many writers and poets are we antagonizing and preventing from contributing to our language? Or for that matter, since the issue goes both ways, how many kannadiga writers are being antagonized into rejecting other languages and never adding more to their literature? For me, what matters is that both sides are losing out in this so-called, mountain-out-of-a-molehill clash of languages. By all means, the Kaveri issue must be sorted out. But can it not be done without both sides yelling insults on the other side's language and culture? But I guess people are too stupid to stop listening to politicians.
I can think of several other examples where people have learnt to accomodate new cultures into their lives. I don't even need to mention famous people. My own great-grandfather, a kannadiga by birth, used to deal with the manufacturing of sugar. He first started in Mandya, Karnataka before shifting to the northen sugar belt in modern-day Uttar Pradesh. Based in the town of Mansurpur (near Muzzafarnagar), he was miles away from anywhere near his place of birth or his community. His mother used to visit him occassionally. She could not speak any language other than kannada. But that did not prevent her from sitting with her son's neighbours and somehow attempt to converse. No one knew how she managed it but she always somehow got around the language barrier and converse with her neighbours. She didn't need Abhishek Bacchan and his watt-an ideeyaah cellphone. Similarly, I have either personally known or heard of several people who had biographies such as being born in Mysore, educated at Pune, sent to work at Vizag and retiring to Chennai. They all managed to assimilate all these cultures perfectly well while speaking excellent kannada simply because it's their mother tongue.
There are still people today who are as multi-cultural as shown above but their population is dwindling. This is one community I'm desperate to join but I've still got a long way to go (improving my hindi for a start). Unfortunately, other people do not seem to be interested. On one side we have anglicized wannabe-americans (a group which I was once a part of) who wish to have nothing to do with Indian culture and on the other side, we have narrow minded cultural fanatics who seem to love bashing up other communities (a group I don't want to have anything to do with). If I have to choose between the two, I'd prefer the wannabe americans, but on the whole, I yearn for a greater number of multi-cultural people in society. The interaction of cultures is neither a clash nor a zero-sum game where one culture has to win over the other. India is a splendid place to experience a spectrum of customs, languages, literature and food (the last one being the most important). This isn't an opportunity to be missed.
