A Regional Society indeed are We

There's yet another thought which just keeps making me feel guilty. Its a collective guilt.

As a country, we have been bleeding for decades together, never as a whole but always in parts and bits and pieces. We never cared if Assam was burning; we claim ownership on Kashmir but never feel for the agonies or atrocities being committed there; did we ever start a movement when Ahmedabad was up in flames or Lucknow or Hyderabad or Jaipur. Did we ever react to the Orissa or Karnataka violence. Never, because we never feel ourselves to be an integral part of this land in its entirety. We always reacted regionally and not nationally. We have always treated parts of our country as a distant relative not even a close one, forget about thinking of India as a family. We just know that we belong to this large country called India, but have never behaved or reacted in that fashion. We all have created mini-Indias wherever we live and we think India is nothing but that. Our concerns get limited to that region alone. So much of a difference in the notional and the real Indias that we live in.

If and only if we matured long back n did not have this narrow outlook, may b things would have been different today. (Have we actually matured even now??!!!)

This time, the educated and effluent class got hit, so they have come in front of the media to express their rage. The aam aadmi would never be able to even express if something happened to him. He just immerses himself in his suffering with noone hearing or ready to hear what he wants to say. If the Assamese had high profile people who could capture media attention or if Orissa had dozens of Shobha Deys who could use the media to express their wrath, then the case would have been different.

The aam aadmi has noone to go to, noone to listen to and noone ready to listen to him. The media may create a story but he will never choose to wage an intellectual battle as the one we are fighting today. Its just that the speaking class got hit this time, n so is this wrath out in the open.
Thats the blunt truth.

Sadly, we are a party to this indifference and disregard in this heterogeneous and regional society.