India of Indians

Nowhere in “The Constitution of India” are written such words as “Bharat Mata” and “Vande Matram”. Neither are found their English equivalent like mother land, mother India. We have Preamble in the beginning which says clearly :

WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly

resolved to constitute India into a 1[SOVEREIGN

SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC] and

to secure to all its citizens:

JUSTICE, social, economic and political;

LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief, faith and

worship;

EQUALITY of status and of opportunity;

and to promote among them all

FRATERNITY assuring the dignity of the individual

and the 2[unity and integrity of the Nation];

It enables us as we the people of India having resolved to constitute India into a Sovereign, Socialist, Secular and Democratic Republic. Nothing less than this and nothing beyond this. As Indian Citizen we have to show our express allegiance to the National Anthem and National Flag. There is no mention of National Song, (Vande Matram)  This is what our Constitution wants us to commit to remain as Indian Citizen, the rest are just implicit derivations which have subjective and philosophic orientation. Some consider it as mother land so they have created a picture which is just a figment of some creative thinking. Everybody has a right to think so. Every poet has legitimate right to expound his thinking in one way or the other. We can like it, appreciate it but not necessarily adopt it. The very same preamble states clearly “Liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship and makes a clear demand to allow this for others and enjoy the same in your own case. We puts all doubts to rest.

India is a country, a national entity recognized politically, socially, economically at all levels, whereas the other implication of this word is that it has the same derivation as the word habitat. A habitat is an environment which allows its inhabitants to breed, feed and weed and fulfill all their natural needs to grow in accordance with their requirements. This enables and infuses a sense of nativity and a sense of belonging which is returned in the form of our love and affections, loyalty and patriotism. It is a natural instinct and as citizens of modern India we should respect rights and growth of one another. But on the other hand the Indian constitution goes a step further and recognizes the objective identity of Indians as its citizens.

India is a country inhabited by the Indian citizens who are required to abide by “The Constitution of India”, the National Flag and the National Anthem. I have searched through the entire text and I failed to find the above words. Therefore, it should be obvious that anything beyond the Constitution of India is a mere subjective derivation and it can not be enforced on the Citizens of India.

Sh Jawahar Lal Nehru made the following observation about Bharat Mata in his well known book “The Discovery of India.” :

"Sometimes as I reached a gathering, a great roar of welcome would greet me: Bharat Mata ki Jai-- Victory to Mother India!  would ask them unexpectedly what they meant by that cry, who was this Bharat Mata, Mother India, whose victory they wanted? My question would amuse them and surprise them, and then, not knowing exactly what to answer, they would look at each other and at me. I persisted in my questioning. At last a vigorous Jat, wedded to the soil from immemorial generations, would say that it was the dharti, the good earth of India, that they meant. What earth? Their particular village patch, or all the patches in the district or province, or in the whole of India? And so question and answer went on, till they would ask me impatiently to tell them all about it. I would endeavour to do to and explain that India was all this that they had thought,
but it was much more. The mountains and rivers of India, and the forests and the broad fields, which gave us food, were all dear to us, but what counted ultimately were the people of India, people like them and me, who were spread out all over this vast land. Bharat Mata, Mother India, was essentially these millions of people, and victory to her meant victory to these people. You are parts of this Bharat Mata, I told them, you are in a manner yourselves Bharat Mata, and as this idea slowly soaked into their brains, their eyes would light up as if they had made a great discovery."

Obviously it is just a philosophic idea to call the land of the country as mother land.or Bharat Mata. This carried an invincible emotional appeal as this shows our attachment to our mother. Just as mother feeds her children and takes care of the needs of her children, so does the land of the country. A attempt has been made to draw similarity between mother and the land we live on. They called it their motherland.

We have created similar concepts in various walks of life. Instead of calling it Natural language we tend to call it Mother tongue to strengthen our belief in the language spoken by our mother to communicate and develop it as our own. Similarly all rivers are addressed as mothers. With the exception of Brhamputra, all the rivers have been named as feminine gender. This is a cultural tradition. Some follow it some do not. In some countries land is addressed as Father. They call it fatherland.  In Russia they call it They father oriented families. They carry the name of their father in their names.

Before Independence the use of such derivations were very common and acceptable as they infused the feeling of oneness and people across the Indian subcontinent liked to to use this term for India. It was used to realize that they were one and united and they can fight the British out. Such philosophic concepts helped Indians psyche to rise above their differences and fight against the British dominion.

However it is apt to bring the following information for our readers taken from the Government of India website www.knowindia.gov.in :

National Symbols

This section introduces you to the National Identity Elements of India. These symbols are intrinsic to the Indian identity and heritage. Indians of all demographics backgrounds across the world are proud of these National Symbols as they infuse a sense of pride and patriotism in every Indian's heart.

National Flag

The National Flag is a horizontal tricolour of deep saffron (kesaria) at the top, white in the middle and dark green at the bottom in equal proportion. The ratio of width of the flag to its length is two to three. In the centre of the white band is a navy-blue wheel which represents the chakra.

The top saffron colour, indicates the strength and courage of the country. The white middle band indicates peace and truth with Dharma Chakra. The green shows the fertility, growth and auspiciousness of the land.

Its design is that of the wheel which appears on the abacus of the Sarnath Lion Capital of Ashoka. Its diameter approximates to the width of the white band and it has 24 spokes. The design of the National Flag was adopted by the Constituent Assembly of India on 22 July 1947.

National Anthem

The National Anthem of India Jana-gana-mana, composed originally in Bengali by Rabindranath Tagore, was adopted in its Hindi version by the Constituent Assembly as the National Anthem of India on 24 January 1950. It was first sung on 27 December 1911 at the Kolkata Session of the Indian National Congress.

The complete song consists of five stanzas. The first stanza contains the full version of the National Anthem.Playing time of the full version of the national anthem is approximately 52 seconds. A short version consisting of the first and last lines of the stanza (playing time approximately 20 seconds) is also played on certain occasions.

National Song

The song Vande Mataram, composed in Sanskrit by Bankimchandra Chatterji, was a source of inspiration to the people in their struggle for freedom. It has an equal status with Jana-gana-mana. On January 24, 1950, the President, Dr. Rajendra Prasad came up with a statement in the Constituent Assembly, "the song Vande Mataram, which has played a historic part in the struggle for Indian freedom, shall be honoured equally with Jana Gana Mana and shall have equal status with it."

The first political occasion when it was sung was the 1896 session of the Indian National Congress. The song was a part of Bankimchandra's most famous novel Anand Math (1882).

State Emblem

The state emblem is an adaptation from the Sarnath Lion Capital of Ashoka. In the original, there are four lions, standing back to back, mounted on an abacus with a frieze carrying sculptures in high relief of an elephant, a galloping horse, a bull and a lion separated by intervening wheels over a bell-shaped lotus. Carved out of a single block of polished sandstone, the Capital is crowned by the Wheel of the Law (Dharma Chakra).

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National Bird

The Indian peacock, Pavo cristatus, the National Bird of India, is a colourful, swan-sized bird, with a fan-shaped crest of feathers, a white patch under the eye and a long, slender neck. The male of the species is more colourful than the female, with a glistening blue breast and neck and a spectacular bronze-green tail of around 200 elongated feathers. The female is brownish, slightly smaller than the male and lacks the tail. The elaborate courtship dance of the male, fanning out the tail and preening its feathers is a gorgeous sight.

National Animal

The magnificent tiger, Panthera tigris is a striped animal. It has a thick yellow coat of fur with dark stripes. The combination of grace, strength, agility and enormous power has earned the tiger its pride of place as the national animal of India.

National Flower

Lotus (Nelumbo Nucifera Gaertn) is the National Flower of India. It is a sacred flower and occupies a unique position in the art and mythology of ancient India and has been an auspicious symbol of Indian culture since time immemorial.

India is rich in flora. Currently available data place India in the tenth position in the world and fourth in Asia in plant diversity. From about 70 per cent geographical area surveyed so far, 47,000 species of plants have been described by the Botanical Survey of India (BSI).

You and Your Religion

Yes, Religion has a social dimension too. It serves a common cause. This very common cause becomes a social religion. It is like something people living together accept it to live together. After all man is known as a social animal and his behaviour and its pattern conforms to it. When did man learn to live in groups can be traced back to his pre-history days when he developed a skill of living together for food and it was during hunting of big game animals that he must have learnt to seek other’s help.

Thus man developed a helpful behaviour where he sought and offered help to other and this is how he must have developed a way of living together in groups and milieus. This gave birth to formation of family and tribes and then community where man learnt to work in groups and developed a social sense. Over the time this formed part of his instinctive behaviour and gradually this became a skill of survival against climatic and environmental odds. Every society is built around the principle of give and take, some rights along with the duties and sometimes the duties are all the above that man enjoys as his rights. Consider Sanskrit word Dharma which means Kartvya where you are bound by your duties.

A society survives only if it learns to live together. It has a mechanism within itself to sustain and survive. All its civic system is divided and subdivided into various duties and obligation and all its members have to fulfil unquestionably. There are rules to obey and set system to follow. Anybody not keeping with the system is considered violators. Within a system they are termed as rebels and every society sooner of later gets rid of its violators. This is called the socialisation; for every socialisation the society has its language and speech and perhaps that is why it is always said that in Rome, do just as the Romans would do. In other words society has a cultural bearing and one’s behaviour should conform to the cultural bearings.

Social religion has its roots deep within the culture of society. One should respect the culture of the society. Your culture is a tool of your survival. It has its roots deep into the demography of a place and its beliefs and legacies are strongly and deeply associated with the environment of a place. It can neither be transferred nor be imported.

Social religion is more or less like a social and cultural way of life. It is social art of living. It is social skill in other words. All the components of the society are dependent on one another for one thing or the other; it is social skill that allows its members to retain their personal religion. Your personal religion is a religion within religion. So every citizen should strongly embrace it and has every right to keep his religion within his embrace.

Social religion has both written and unwritten form and invariably it consists of social morality and social justice to the acceptable norms within the community. In the past often a tribal head would make final decisions on unprecedented and intricate social problems. This comes as a code and is well known and acceptable as customs and traditions. It was the same that keeps the society or community closely binding.

Unlike organised form or religion, social religion is irregular and flexible in both pattern and performance as it evolves regularly and continuously making adjustments with the environment. The locus of control is within and not outside the members of the society as in the case of Organised Religion.

Social religion has a marked effect on the socio and economic activities of the society as it predominantly and actively engages the society as a whole and where the dependence on one another for social and economic activities leads to a well knit social fabric. Our agrarian form of society is remarkable example and the rural system of Indian civilisation is a glaring instance.

 Thus a social religion too which means to me collaboration, social adjustment where working together, toiling together leads to life and survival. It is more of community than that of society. My first preference to conform to the rules and principles defined and fixed by the community I am living in. But at the same time, I work as an active member of the community where my opinion matters most in deciding for the society.

It is like growing and letting others grow as well; it is live and let others live type so long as they do not hinder your growth. My being a part of the social fabric is based on the principle of the greater common good where majority allows the minority in respect of their personal life. Mutual respect and mutual allowance is the binding thread that runs through the social fabric that holds things together and it is here I find  living and dying together even for a greater common cause and defending the very social fabric against all those who invade our social scenario. This is my religion towards my society, my people and my country.

The true concept of a country is what is known as habitat in the ecology. The social fabric is our ecology and what sustains it is the ecological system. Any thing that challenges this very social fabric is intolerable for me and I would try my best to weave

Such a social religion does not last longer than the society. As soon as the defragmentation of the society takes place, the social fabric is turned to rags and the social religion is confined to the culture of communities living in remnants. It becomes first victim of evolution of the society under the impact of industrialisation. 

My Religion

My religion is like my innermost wear that protects my body from the heat of life and keeps me cool. It is my way of living, the way I think and the way I argue and negotiate with the oddities of life to smoothen them to suit me. It is my life skill; making me adaptive to survive in the environment to which I belong to. It is my style, the personal most style which I do not like share with others. Therefore, I cannot afford to make a public show of my religion.

Do I need to parade myself publicly in my innermost wears and wares? Of course not, I do not want to allow any body to pass a comment of my religious practice neither should I be allowed to pass any judgement on your religion. My beliefs belong to my faithful practice and I should be allowed to do what I feel like. It is my personal liberty, my freedom to think, practice and use it for social and economic survival. In a free society there should be no public religion and every body should be allowed to continue with his personal well being.

Your religion should be your personal entity. It should be your personal property and in a bid to share it with the public or to identify with the public religion is like giving a thoroughfare on your personal property to every Dick and Harry. Personally speaking, I do not care for other’s religion so long as it is confined to the personal periphery of somebody.  At the same time, I do not allow any body to walk into my periphery with his religion. I strongly object it.

My religion is made of my personal choices, my likes and dislikes. It enables me a liberty and I enjoy to the most to decide what I should eat and what I should not. It allows me to pamper my taste bud and I develop it accordingly to thrive in the way I like. I don’t like anybody interfere with my choices and force his decisions on me. Very naturally and instinctively, I tend to protest and reject all such dictates. The locus of control over decisions and desires rests with me and I like to have it in the way I am growing.