India from a different eye http://www.dawn.com/weekly/dmag/dmag7.htm
By Ishtiaq Ali Mehkri
Visiting India is always a great experience. A country with many riddles and answers, as well as a gigantic and versatile landscape housing around one-fifth of the world population.
It has many socio-political dimensions to study too, besides its decisive diversity from Kanyakumari in the south to Jammu in the belts of Himalaya.
It is multi-religious, multi-lingual, and multi-ethnic apart from accommodating a crystal clear north-south psychological divide as well as a class-based society.
Furthermore, abject poverty is what the great country has to espouse. It is its biggest demerit. Nonetheless, it has made great headway since the days of green revolution to the information technology boon. Along with it is the triumph of institutions in its 53 years of uninterrupted political rule.
Throughout India modernity and development go hand in hand. It is, however, equally greeted by inherent socio-economic backwardness throughout its length and breath. But, nonetheless, everywhere there seems to be an urge to change and march with the dotcom wave of the contemporary world. The stride towards egalitarianism and growth is manifest in India’s political culture which though rotten and corrupt by any standards of the Third World countries, has the needed spark to stage a comeback.
Central to India’s vision of the day is what Prime Minister A.B Vajpayee refers as India’s secularism along with its indigenous pluralism. India’s journey in the past five decades is one of obsession and caution, as well as an insatiable desire to change. It’s socio-political pundits and intelligentsia believe that it had been successful in preserving two ideals that many of the newly-born nation states had failed to do: unity of India and its democratic system.
There may be many critics to the claim but the Indians should be given full marks for that. The reason lies in their commitment for building national institutions and upholding what their founding fathers had wished for the ethno-plural Gandhian entity. They say the country has managed to live as a single socio-political entity notwithstanding many ups and downs.
A famous saying goes in the corridors of power in New Delhi that while the North contributes through sword; the pen comes from the South.
However, the primary threat that India faces is from its religious zealots who are not only a black spot to its secularist edifice but also to the order of the day. Bal Thackeray’s advocating of ‘Doctrine of Uniformity’ forms its core.
A visit across its length and breath from Mumbai down to Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Mysore and then up to New Delhi is a pleasure by any means. Full marks to its communication infrastructure, especially the railways. It is by all means tourist-friendly. Be it the Rajdhani Express from the capital to its major metropolitans, the Tamil Nadu express or the Shatabadi express, it is pleasure plus fun. Almost the entire railway network is run by electric locomotives, as well as an efficient and traveler-friendly computerized reservation system.
All the major cities have an electric circular train network through which its populace benefits. Be it office-goers, school kids or the labourers, commutation is swift through a network of public sector services.
More enterprising are its meals. A visible categorization of vegetarian and non-vegetarian is all around. The Brahmanic society has many non-meat dishes to espouse such as dosa, idli and sambhar as well as pooral of almost all vegetables. It’s not only cheap but also mouth-watering.
Be it Kerala, Ooty, Khandala, Goa, Cochin, Kolkata or Agra’s wonder of the world – Taj Mahal, India is splendid in beauty and full of tourism enterprises. The plus point is that it has the necessary backing of a tourist-friendly infrastructure and all that is desired to make a focal point of human leisurely attraction.
Its tourist diversity is historic, too. It is not only a Hindu India with Sadhus bathing in the Ganges, but also houses two more great civilizations in the form of Khawaja Ghareb Nawaz in Ajmer and St. Francis in Goa.
Of the entire landscape that attracts more to the tourists is the south of India. It is not only lushing green but also full of adventure. Metropolitans such as Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai are places to be seen. Their pace of development is not only swift but also impressive for a poor country like India. Chennai, formerly Madras, is often referred to by the locals as ChennaiSingapuri. They intend to build its infrastructure and social services on the Singapore model. With a network of flyovers and electric circular, the city along with its rich beaches and gigantic shopping centers is a great tourist attraction.
Apart from seashores where playlands and picnic points have been built, the city and its outskirts have a rich collection of historic sites. Ashoka and Chandragupta Mauria’s Mahabalipuram is one of them.
It’s a stone-carved place with caves and monuments along the Bay of Bengal shores leading up to Pondichery. A fine piece of stone craft work could be seen here depicting the rich Hindu civilization unrecorded in human history with tales and myths all around.