Dinesh Kamath's Editorial (India should learn from America) that was published in Newsband

India should learn from America

Some Indians have the habit of making their own people aliens in the country. We already have genuine problems of terrorists and illegal immigrants. As if these were not enough, some Indians indulge in unnecessary wars against their fellow countrymen.

One leader went on the record as saying that he would brand Biharis in Maharashtra as 'infiltrators'. Is he trying to wage this unnecessary war just for his own political gains? He believes that the outsiders in Maharashtra have grabbed the jobs of the Marathi manoos. He even went to the extent of threatening that he would throw out every Bihari who lives in Mumbai.

It would be worthwhile if the state and Union government protected their citizens from internal attacks. If they can’t do this simple thing how can you expect them to contain cross-border terrorists? Even Hindi news channels should not stoke the ‘Bihari-vs-Marathi’ issue to fire up their own TRPs.

Attacking the citizens of one’s own country is attacking the very 'roots of democracy' by violating the fundamental freedoms of movement, earning a livelihood and expression.

It has become a habit for some people of Maharashtra to wage unnecessary wars against their own fellow-countrymen. First they targeted Gujaratis, next South Indians, then Muslims and now Biharis. This game of branding some group or the other as outsiders and then waging a war against them doesn’t seem to end. Wars should be waged against negative factors like poverty, unemployment, crime, corruption etc., not against individuals. Wars should be waged against terminal ailments like cancer.

The world is civilized today and man-against-man wars are not in keeping with the rules of civilization. Such wars violate the principles of civilization. Also we should live up to the image of ‘unity in diversity’ that our country boasts of. India always believed in peaceful co-existence and so it is the duty of every citizen of India to see to it that peace in our country is not disturbed especially by magnifying small issues.

Such petty wars do not occur only in Maharashtra. If there are people who say Maharashtra is for Marathi Manush, there are also people who believe in ‘Kolkata for Bengalis’, ‘UP, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh for Hindites’, ‘Chennai, A.P. and Karnataka for Tamil, Telugu and Kannad’, ‘India for Hindus’ and so on. This is a very serious problem. It is high time that all patriotic Indians sat together and worked out a strategy to meet this challenge and solved the issue before it caused irreparable damage to the country.

To have different languages, different cultures and different religion is not a bad thing for any country but to hate the people of different languages, different cultures and different religion is a serious matter. We should learn from advanced countries like United States which have the same problem like India, but here different languages, different cultures and different religions don’t hate each other rather they are so beautifully assimilated and conjoined that nobody has any problem with each other. Diversity is not only welcome in U.S. but it is promoted by respecting other cultures and religion. India should learn a thing or two from America.