It was the scorching afternoon on the inaugural day of Shaastra 2008.
This year it was commenced by the BIG BANG shaastra conclave where Distinguished alumni, Politicians and historian were invited to discuss on the theme "Celebrating the spirit of EMERGENT INDIA." The Ambience and arrangements were extraordinary awesome. Kudos to our Shaastra’s Core team for taking up this initiative and sweat down a lot for making this event successful.
Usually Alumni become nostalgic on visiting their alma mater and this happened on the podium when one alumnus remembering about the U given by Prof. Antony Reddy and about the hostel life at Jamuna during his talk. He applauded "GO JAM" which was countered by their Arch Rival Gangasters saying "JAM ki MAA KA" but the noise the quite inaudible.
One of the alumni had appended the famous quote by Confucius in his talk saying
"I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand."
"I teach and I excel".
The funniest thing that happened was that the Renault Nissan Executive was invited to talk on this theme. I didn't understand that how one foreigner can talk on the theme “ EMERGENT INDIA”, whose has just settled in India, 18 months ago. Quite ridiculous right!
The talk by Dr. Ramachandra Guha instigated me to think about the major threats to our democracy and nationalism. His appearance is like a Common man, not haired properly but with a charming face which has a shine of youth and success.
In his talk he had posed some threats for the Indian Democracy
1) Rise of Maoist movement in India due to prejudice policies of the government for rural people and tribes.
2) The rise of Fanaticism in India especially the Hindu Fundamentalism. He said it is a biggest threat for India because India has the majority of Hindus and if such thing will start rooting in the majority that will be a hazard for the secular fabric of our nation.
I was thinking at that moment that he has missed something which I feel would be one of the threats for our nationhood is the Linguistic Fundamentalism. All of us know what is happening in Maharashtra. Does anyone can justify the actions of Raj Thackeray? No! that is the common answer by any rational and a broad minded person. He (Raj) says he is a nationalist, Does his claim is really true? I would say no. He only talks about "Maharashtraian Nationalism “but not "Indian Nationalism". Doesn't this hamper our integrity? Does his comments against Biharis and Uttar pradeshis doesn't tear our unity? Yes it does. His comments have made the life of other Marathis in different states miserable. I would say he doesn't have the sense of humor and his history is also poor. If you move back to the history Marathis were not confined to the Maharashtra only. There were several states where Marathi dynasties survived. Gwalior, Indore, Jhansi and Vadodra were among those states (before independence) where Marathi culture had its root in the soil and still present. Then for which "Marathi Manus" he is fighting for? Does his claim that Marathis are only belong to Maharashtra is legitimate? I want you people to think...
I would say that we shouldn't be proud of having the diversity in our nation if it creates the hell lot of problems.
