Why we must bid goodbye to the idea of India

The good thing about democracy is that everybody has a right to free speech and thought. The bad thing about democracy is that some people think that since they have the right to free speech and comment, they can propagate the curbing of the right to free speech and thought of those with opposing views. 

It also becomes problematic when the so called fourth estate imbibes the same values as the least common denominators of the third. When the "free press" of a democracy by choice toes the jingoistic patriotic partisan line of the majority, then democracy itself is in trouble. As dissenting voices are silenced or shouted down, there is no contrarian view left and with only one view and one prism to judge things by, it is finally no democracy after all…there is no India left. 

Diversity was meant to be the strength of India, a cliché that children were taught over and over again in the first half a century of its existence. But now that these same children have grown up to be adults and middle aged and old, diversity is no longer the strength but is turning out to be the weakness of India. 

Indians were supposed to revel in the identity of their nationality and that was supposed to be the unifying strand that kept everyone together not the common religion or language or beliefs. 

Indian democracy presupposes not just the existence but the acceptance of diverse opinion. So for the sake of Indian democracy, let me list a few unacceptable contrarian views. 

1.    Let love be free: Let a man or woman love another man or woman without any consideration to sex.

2.    Let an Indian eat beef if he wants to and not eat beef if he or she does not want to.

3.    Let those Indians who want to watch porn in the privacy of his or her own four walls do so.

4.    Let an Indian watch India's Daughter or Fifty Shades of Grey.

5.    Let Indian film makers include the word lesbian, or any other of their choice, in the dialogue.

6.    Let an Indian read the Satanic Verses or any book published anywhere in the world.

7.    Let those Indians who so want watch and participate in the type of risqué comedy that AIB does.

8.    Let an Indian not want to hang another human being, be it a Godse or a Memon.

9.    Let an Indian not learn Hindi.

10.  Let an Indian not be a Hindu. 

So I write to those who define Indianness as being Hindu or vegetarian or anti-Pakistani or pro-death sentence or anti-porn watching or anti-gay love or anti-beef or just about anti-anything which does not meet their "high" moral standards to step back a little and see where the division ends. 

It ends at the individual because no human is alike in every respect, not father not son, not mother nor daughter, and certainly not brother and brother. So how long can you divide? How long will you shout that I don't accept difference? 

Till one is left standing all alone? Would that be a place you would want to live in? Is that the India you want?