IS THIS JINGOISM We are talking here about the conduct of the 60 odd Kashmiri students after an India Pakistan cricket match, and their subsequent expulsion from University. Let us examine the rights and wrongs of it. The right to cheer any team or country, is a very private matter. There should definitely not be any binding on this. But, what the students did, is it just that, innocuous, innocent cheering of some team in a cricket match? Even if we talk superficially, we know it is not. Let us not be naive about it. They are saying that they reject the idea of their being, even if it is only technical in their eyes, Indians. Even upto this point, I have no issue with them. We all know all too well that a significant number of Kashmiris have separatist ideas. We will not go into the validity or invalidity of it for now. There are, after all, others also including the Maoists. I take up issue with them only when they do so, without consideration of offending the sensibilities of those around them. The Indian University that admitted them might have known about these students views, still they welcomed them. Their fellow students might also have come to know, and yet they were there, in the middle of all other Indian students. Despite their grievances with the Indian state, they had applied to, and got admission to, Indian Universities. You could say that they have no other option but to study in Indian Universities, as they are technically, if not in spirit, Indians only. But here, while rejecting the idea of being Indians, they embrace Indian education. Theirs looks like an ideology of convenience. Even this far, it is no matter. But to cock a snook at a people while living, educating in their midst, is definitely offending. When you go to a mosque, even if you are a pork eater or a drinker, you do not lecture on the benefits of it. Or the merits of meat in a Hindu temple, or on the perceived demerits of never cutting your hair and tying it in a turban for all times to Sikhs, no matter how much you believe in it yourself. When I go to a temple, or a mosque or Gurudwara, which is only out of academic interest as I am a confirmed non-believer in the conventional sense, I do wazoo, cover my head with a scarf or skull-cap, remove my shoes, and do everything else that the diktats of decency, ritual and established procedure demand. I respect others’ beliefs, their values, their religion, and their nationalities. I DO NOT OFFEND. If they had been outright Pakistanis, or any other nationality for that matter, there would not have been any issue, and all this would have been friendly banter. The responsibility of being respectful to each others’ values is mutual, and so are the consequences. The very same people whose sensibilities are very easily offended, over minor things or incidents, do not think for a moment about offending the sensibilities of others. The expulsion of students from the University is a case of mutual rejection by students and the rest of India. I am sure that the Kashmiris have many grievances with the Indian state, and the state’s hand might have been very heavy on them, yet the other citizens of India in general have no antagonism with them. So while they have every right to harbour dreams of an independent Kashmir, when in the Indian heartland, they have to be susceptible to Indian sensibilities. In Rome, you have to do as the Romans do. (for the full article, visit soulriders.bike/blog.html)
Posted on: Sat, 08 Mar 2014 10:16:47 +0000
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