We Indians are good at making tall claims about ourselves but the reality is far from our claims of being secular and coexisting in diversity. The Indian Diaspora is wide spread with 22 official languages, 3.2 million Square Kilometre in area and 28 states separated by different governments originally from the Indus Valley Civilization.
After having traveled throughout the country, some of these cultural differences are easily noticed and easy for an outsider to pick at quickly. The current Telangana issue of dividing the “land over languages” spoken is a typical example of the unrest among the people of our country. The Dravidian languages which existed in India were supplanted by the (Aryans) Indo-European languages like the English, Hindi, Punjabi and few others. The Dravidian languages were primarily Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam which is widely spoken in the southern states of our country. North western and the north east regions of India have seen a small spread of Dravidians. About 72% of Indians are Aryans who invaded from the west and 28% are Dravidians who got pushed down south from the Indus Valley Civilization of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro.
A south Indian in the north is addressed a Madrasi and initially life for a Madrasi in the north is not easy. A 5 month stint in Delhi was a nightmare from a security perspective. Abusive language one uses in Delhi extrapolates ones observation to deep route the fact that; it’s originally not an Indian culture. A good friend of mine from Uttar Pradesh tells me that he does not prefer to go back up north, because of the humiliating behaviour of the people. Having lived here for the last 8 years or more he finds warmth and comfort in the south rather than in the north.
Being a man; in a patriarchal social system, Delhi painted a scary image in my mind; then undoubtedly it’s no place for India’s daughter like the Nirbhaya. Emanate from this is not just a cultural issue, but a ravage that could be caused by a series of civil war’s that this country is yet to witness.
Amidst the sacrament humiliations of the identity crisis; Sexual abuse, Telangana, Maoist attacts, corruption and many others, I think we have lost our Identity long ago; the very moment we started mimicking the west.