One of the wonders of the world is that there are no two snowflakes that are exactly the same. Another wonder is that though many people may look alike, no two people — not even identical twins — are exactly the same. So imagine the grand variety in the world around us. Yet, part of every child’s early learning pattern is a thampura sruti of “she is like us,” “he is one of us,” “they are different,” etc, culminating in the disastrous, “don’t befriend them — they are not like you.” Parents, friends, cousins, neighbours, the community — all play a part in building a prison around your body, and, more damagingly and deeply, around your mind. Once you yourself close the doors and lock yourself in, social divisions for a lifetime are well in place.
Shall we try to drill through the prisons we might be in?
Grand Variety It is true that cultural and religious backgrounds persuade people to view life differently. A child who has never had to carry a basket of vegetables or wash a plate or fold her own clothes will begin to think that manual labour of all kinds is beneath her. Apart from this is the huge importance given to intellectual development and a life spent in a room among books, disconnected from the rough and tumble of the world outside. Many people who cannot afford to get an education work in different ways to keep the wheels of the economy running. Are they to be looked down on because they survive differently from you? When we say ‘the dignity of labour’, what exactly do we understand by it? All of us draw our strength from the same sources and finally return to them. Why is it that we simply cannot forget superficial differences during the time between birth and death? Because someone does not dress or speak like oneself, is it reason enough to reject that person either silently or forcefully? Both deploy different kinds of violence and are to be shunned.
In 2006, students from privileged classes protested against the government’s reservation policy by sweeping roads, polishing shoes and selling vegetables, as if to state that that is what they would be reduced to if they did not get their expected entrance into institutions of higher learning. They did not make shoes or grow vegetables because they did not know how to. Nor did they try to till the land. The protest was only symbolic but demonstrated the fact that these students did not associate dignity with manual labour. They saw themselves as very different from those whose livelihood depended on it.
Law and life Which brings us to the most intense differentiation seen in India: the practice of caste. Though the law of the land gives everyone equal status and opportunities there is a strong conviction that some people are born impure and inferior and that others are born pure and superior; that some people are born to serve others and that others are automatically heir to all the privileges of the country — it could be entrance to schools, colleges or jobs in offices.
Is this ethical?
Here is a verse from a Hindi poem by Kumar Vikal translated by Bisham Sahni
Can you tell me the nationalityOf those blood-stained clothesWorn-out shoes, broken cyclesBooks and toys?Can you tell me the creedOf those tearsIn the eyes of the motherWaiting for her daughterWho will never return from school?
We are the descendants of those who saw Arabs, Romans, Phoenicians, Chinese, Portuguese, French, Dutch and English traders and conquerors who came to south India. We are the descendants of Greeks, Mongols, Turks and Afghan invaders in North India some of whom stayed on to rule. They all mingled on the broad face of India and were absorbed. Three of the world’s major religions originated in our country, related to and growing out of the dominant faith. Indian Muslims and Indian Christians are culturally unique, and Parsis, as an ethnic group, do not exist anywhere else in the world.
Is it not time to be proud of our stupendous variety and see the oneness we might enjoy? A teacher asked his students, “When will you know that the night is over and the day has dawned?” One replied “When the rooster crows.” Another said, “When the sun rises.” A third, hoping to please his teacher said, “When I can see your face.” “All of you are wrong,” said the teacher, “When you see a stranger and know him to be your brother, then you will know that a new day has begun. The darkness is over.”
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