Loving Land and Losing It : The Young India

Kartikey Sehgal

India is losing land to her neighbour. The author says that “it should be no surprise that Indians are getting restless or communal or impatient as is often reported by writers and thinkers in the print and television medium.”

Land is sacred for Indians and it presents one difference between the nationalists and the others. They former love land and land is equal to religion for them; you can pray to the universe or you can pray to the idols or alternatively you can pray to the land. That is why the ones removed from religion, actually dharma, are willing to make compromises over land.

Take this conversation: “The government is losing land to the neighbours. That is because they have communist influence.” An innocuous conversation in a train except that the talkers are concerned and looking at reasons for the government’s lack of interest in reclaiming lost land.

This does not necessarily question the government’s intentions and credibility. It definitely shows a certain disrespect for the masses, most of who are far removed from politics and concerned in gathering a few meals a day. Were they to get educated they would question and probably not elect a government that is averse to their aspirations of ‘land as a deity’. That is why keeping the people uneducated works in the government’s favour.

Maybe that is why the rise of education in India coincides with the rise of non-Congress governments at the centre.

This author at his table and the 9 to 6 employees sweating in the train are concerned about the country’s land somewhere in Ladakh. The train people and many like them may not have read about the tenets about communism but they make simple calculations. Politician + Communism = Soft on China.

As evidence they refer to statements like:

The concern on the Indian side is that these incursions by China are taking place a little more frequently than India is comfortable with. (source)
The area along Line of Actual Control with China has "shrunk" over a period of time and India has lost "substantial" amount of land in the last two decades, says an official report.
"Though this process if very slow but we have lost substantial amount of land in 20-25 years," it was said at the meeting held last month. (source)
"But at the same time, the situation that is prevailing right now on the border and along the LAC, there is no need of pressing any panic button. Peace and tranquillity are being retained there. (source)

Therefore, it should be no surprise that Indians are getting restless or communal or impatient as is often reported by writers and thinkers in the print and television medium. They are concerned for land; the concern is seemingly not shared by those in power. And just like they are easily labelled as communal they will label their opponents as ‘pseudo-secular’ and ‘commie’.

Meanwhile, what about the land?

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The Young India

Loving Land and Losing It

on January 29, 2010

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