HVK Archives: Integration at all cost
Integration at all cost - The Pioneer
Abhishek Singh
()
26 March 1997
Title : Integration at all cost
Author : Abhishek Singh
Publication : The Pioneer
Date : March 26, 1997
During Narasimha Rao's visit to Malaysia a couple years ago, at one
of the Press conferences, a journalist contended that on the roads
of Kashmir one saw an apple cart for every few Army trucks. The
reference is symbolic of the state of affairs which separatist
forces bring with it: trade or other development activities in the
area gripped with the "separation fever" come to a standstill. The
situation in Kashmir, thankfully, is not as bad now but the very
spirit of nationalism remains in danger of being diluted by the
destructive spirit of separatism or, in many cases, by regionalism.
Sanity demands that a nation remains integrated as far as possible.
For just like the proverbial fist is stronger than the individual
fingers, a nation is far stronger than its smaller units are,
individually. Besides this obvious disadvantage of the loss of
"power" in a hostile world, there is also the fact that regionalism
threatens to slacken the pace of development.
The resources that the Government should be spending on upgradation
of living standards and the like are being, sadly, diverted to the
expenditure involved in the preservation of national integrity. It
does not require much imagination to realise that hat the
Government spends today in fighting its own people in Assam and
Kashmir, r example, if diverted for constructive purposes, would
take care of most of those grievances that might have started the
"battle". Moreover, it cannot be overlooked that regionalism is
that parochialistic a thought which acts to negate the force of
national integration.
India, as a nation, is still fairly nascent with only 50 years
having gone by since its inception. It needs to be always borne in
mind that the United States of America had to face a civil war 84
years after having attained Independence to finally tide over the
threat of regionalism. If lessons are to be learnt from history,
the time is now. Why should the nation let regionalistic
tendencies grow to such an extent where a civil war becomes an
inevitability? This may sound like gross exaggeration but it is
not. Pause a while and think, are Bodoland and Kashmir far away
from what Chechnya is today?
It is India's good fortune that it has such a strong historical
antecedent that Kashmir did not become Chechnya as quickly as it
could have. But can we stretch our luck too far? If at all
Kashmir is allowed to become a Chechnya, we can say good-bye to
peace for the next half of century.
Leaving aside all the political hazards of regionalism, there is
also that equally important factor of economic hazards. The world
today is enamoured with the thought of global economy. Here, too,
regionalism brings with it social evils as human rights violation
which, time and again, the developed nations blame India of,
especially in Kashmir. The police atrocities committed on
Uttarakhand demonstrators in Mussoorie also fall in the same
category.
The state cannot be blamed squarely for the use of force during the
course of its action against the separatist forces but it must
share the blame for having given birth to such tendencies in the
first place. India can ill-afford take such incidents in its
stride. When the United States threatened to take away the MFN
status from China on the charges of human rights violations, the
latter had the economic clout to bail itself through. But India
could well end up on the losing side if faced with this situation.
Hence, there is a strong need to eliminate the separatist force of
parochial regionalism from the nation's profile. India has always
fared well with a strong government in the Centre. Whenever
regional satraps have become, dominant, the national interests have
been compromised. The striving for integration into the national
mainstream must begin from regional intelligentsia and then build
upwards. The saga of India's struggle for Independence from the
colonial clutches is not so old that it should be forgotten
altogether. Rani Gaidilieu of Nagaland and Sheikh Abdullah of
Kashmir fought for the liberation of a united India and not for
separate entities of Nagaland and Kashmir. The feeling of
nationalism cannot possibly have died so soon, all it needs is a
bit of rekindling. But the Centre, too, has a role to play in the
issue.
It is very important that the intelligentsia involved in the
regional movements take a lesson from the past. The role of Subhas
Gheising, Yaseen Malik and the likes should be more on these lines.
At the same time, the Centre must also cooperate.
Most of the regional movements have economic considerations as the
prime mover - be it the movement of Jharkhand, Uttarakhand or
Bodoland. It does become the Union Government's duty to draft the
plan outlays for respective regions in accordance with the economic
needs and desires. It is a Herculean task but unavoidable in terms
of safeguarding the national integrity.
The need of the hour, then, is to recognise the nation as a family
- compromises have to be made by the individual members and, at the
same time, it is the patriarch's duty to give his best to the
family, maintaining equity as best as he can. Certainly, if each
one of us begin to look at the nation as a family, that sense of
loyalty towards the nation will be greater, for nobody likes the
idea of a broken family.
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