Travelure
By Hugh & Colleen Gantzer
Once again, India has led the world in a major democratic civic activity: General Elections. There is every likelihood that these results will be disputed loudly and violently. There will be accusations and counter accusations and breaches of good order and civic discipline. This is what happened in the United States of America when the enraged followers of the Conservative candidate, Donald Trump, stormed Washington’s Capitol Hill in an attempt to reverse the declared results of the USA’s Presidential Election.
India has never resorted to such a naked display of illegal force. This happened in a nation that calls itself THE MOTHER OF ALL DEMOCRACIES.
Donald Trump is still very likely to be his country’s choice of candidates from the Right Wing Republican Party. This, despite the fact, that he is deeply mired in a sordid scandal involving a professional performer in X-Rated Films. Moreover, he reputedly diverted money from legitimate activities to this unlawful one.
On the other side of the ocean Russia continues to rage war on Ukraine. This conflict affects the whole world, particularly Europe and yet the European Union does little more than make platitude statements.
Another war continues to be waged by Israel’s extreme right-wing parties on a narrow strip of land on which the people of Palestine were expected to survive. It is, however, very difficult to point a finger at the main aggressor in this bloody conflict. But it is worth remembering that both sides proudly trace their origin to the same ancestor: Father Abraham.
Such conflicts in which people of the same bloodline seeking to destroy each other are the worst. We have little doubt that the British deliberately sowed the seeds of such anguish when it partitioned India into two nations, with Pakistan divided into racially segmented portions separated by a hostile India. East Pakistan didn’t have a hope of surviving. We recall paying an additional postage cess to support the influx of refugees from East Pakistan. We also recall hearing horrifying tales of young women of East Pakistan being bled to death to provide blood transfusion to Pakistani troops. The creation of an independent Bangladesh was inevitable.
It is always dangerous to stir up hated based on sectarian differences. America went through these traumas for many generations after the Stars and Stripes were unfurled to mark its independence from an exploiting England. But even then, it had to go through the agony of the American Civil War because the Southern Confederation did not like The Damn Yankees. Such North-South divides continue to plague many nations!
India struck at the root of this problem by creating the Linguistic States. Our decision makers realised that the mother tongue of a person is something that a person values above anything else. Primarily, it is a person’s means of communicating with those with whom he shares common social values. Any attempt to destroy this basic cultural expression is deeply resented. A mother tongue can never be alienated as an import from another culture. The human race is one regardless of how an individual expresses himself. Attempts to fit every individual into a single mould has always failed.
Hitler tried that in spite of the fact that he, himself, did not fit into his own racial myth. He even created breeding camps in which blonde, blue-eyed, co-called Aryan males could impregnate blond, blue-eyed Aryan females to create A New Master Race. But Hitler himself was a black haired, brown eyed Austrian, who became a German citizen on 25th February 1932.
We welcome Mr Modi’s decision to meditate in Vivekananda Rock. He will, undoubtedly, take to heart and absorb the message that the Great Swami delivered in his 1893 speech in the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago. “I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal tolerance but we accept all religions as true. I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth.”
We share his pride. And every Indian, from the least to the most influential should do so.
(Hugh & Colleen Gantzer hold the National Lifetime Achievement Award for Tourism among other National and International awards. Their credits include over 52 halfhour documentaries on national TV under their joint names, 26 published books in 6 genres, and over 1,500 first-person articles, about every Indian state, UT and 34 other countries. Hugh was a Commander in the Indian Navy and the Judge Advocate, Southern Naval Command. Colleen is the only travel writer who was a member of the Travel Agents Association of India.) (The opinions and thoughts expressed here reflect only the authors’ views!).
