Why India Survives

While reading the epilogue of Ramachandra Guha's legendary work - India after Gandhi, one point have made me think a lot. It is true that democracy, freedom of expression, bureaucracy etc have contributed a lot in the very survival of Indian state, but the very diversity of our country has also contributed somewhat in this survival.

When a dalit girl is being raped in a village, urban India thinks that it is not their problem. When riot breaks out in Muzzafarnagar, delhite, along with most others, are thinking it is not their problem. When refugees from east Bengal were not getting enough food and shelter, others thought it is not their problem. In times Ethnic riots in Assam we thought it is the problem of Assamese.

We have so many divisions – regional, religions, ethnic, caste, rural-urban … that whenever some problem occurred which should have motivated us to think and take some constructive/destructive actions, we nicely distanced ourselves from the event.

And this avoidance is one of the reasons why mass anarchy or mass movements covering whole India have occurred in very less frequency in independent India. Professor Ashutosh varshney in his book “Battles half won” discussed elaborately in same subject. Interested people may go through both the books.