RayC wrote
Why are we fighting when we have a common glorious Indic background?
Let us strengthen this Indic background.
At least someone is seeing the light! So be it. Let us realize that all this fighting is a rseult of moving away from the "Indic".
Or is merely an intellectual charade?
It is natural for the "Indic" to have self-doubts, it is "Indic's" greatest strength and weakness.
India has always had subnationalism and the Indic issue was never in the foreground.
Enough of such evidence in history!
Here starts the fundamental problem. We see this confusion even in this thread or on the forum sometimes. The problem is that when people say things like above, they are not aware of their own confusion about "nationalism". When the definition of "nationalism" is not based on "culture" and belief systems, other criteria are used - claims about ethnicity, language, region etc. All of which are in turn problematic, because people have always migrated and are still migrating. So origins, bloodlines, languages, ethnicity - all are dynamic, and strict boundaries based on them are always going to be impossible to create.
So all historical conflicts in India, when taken out of the context of its cultural affiliation can be made to look like "subnationalisms". In fact that term itself is a problem - for it assumes that there is an overriding "nationalism" already, of which these are "subs". Its nothing more tragi-comic a confusion than deciding whether the possibly bloody civil and criminal conflicts between two brothers over paternal inheritance - means the family never existed or not!
Why did the Borgis invade Bengal annually? Bengalis and Marathas were Indic! To my way of looking the Indic line is bogus and subnationalism is supreme! Uttter humbug is this Ibdic line as the posts are indicating.
Yes, actually, there are narratives of Bengalis carrying vendettas into Kashmir. Or the Pala kings of Bengal supposedly taking the battle right up the Gangetic plains. Even a Bengali commander was supposed to be working under Prithviraj III, and surely must have participated in the "trauma" caused on the neighbours of Prithviraj.
But did the Marathas destroy Bengali cultural icons - temples, monasteries, etc.? Did the Palas of Bengal destroy temples, monasteries, intellectuals in their campaigns? Practised routine enslavement? Time and again, we have indications of "Indic" people from one region of India, in the past being given refuge and allowed to migrate with no genocidic or xenophobic backlash, in other parts of India. All because of their mutual recognition of belonging to the same cultural continuity.
Be real. We are proud to be one, but we are also feriously parochial about our subnationalism!
We have become more parochial because we have swallowed, bait hook and tackle - the propaganda that we have no commonality culture and belief/philosophy wise. So all our internal competitions for power or resources can be glorified as subnationalism. Acknowledging such competitions as "subnationalisms" is a subconscious acceptance of defeat at the hands of persistent demands that India is a "collection" of "nations" and not one nation.
I for one, in spite of being a Bengali say that give Gorkhaland and Kamatapur. The latter may survive, but Gorkhaland will be total failure. Apart from Tourism, they have not even the water to sustain their towns. Let them realise what in Bengali they say - koto dhane koto chal (from how much of raw rice grain come out real edible rice). And I have Gorkha relatives and have no qualms on mentioning how foolish an idea it is! But then, it is their land and they have a right to decide!
Why should national policy be the subject for personal euphoria that "look I knew you would fail miserably and I allowed you to dance your merry dance so that I could enjoy your spectacular failing"?
I am tempted to quote Swapan Dasgupta:
To the BJP president who, by common consensus, had a limited target audience of his speechwriters and his “appointing authority”, a euphemism for the bigwigs of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, there was nothing unnatural in embellishing the documentation of the Devraha Baba’s spiritual and Hindu credentials with his transnational appeal — the paradoxical nationalist quest for foreign certification. To a less committed audience, it was further evidence of an inability to distinguish between legitimate history, conspiracy theory, mythology, bazaar gossip and plain banality.
I am constrained to add that I find it laughable and ludicrous the Indic big talk here on this forum when the reality is but showing that it is bogus and we are only breaking up our country!
That is why I call Indic cohesiveness and history as false and intellectual dishonesty far beyond the reality of today!
What a magnificient stick to beat all one's pet demons with a single blow! A single prosecutor, judge and jury who has already decided the merits of the case and passed sentence even before the court has opened. Is this last tirade at all relevant for this thread?
Linguistic identities, and regionalism, promoted without highlighting and reconstructing cultural commonality will always create these types of shows where certain groups will fight it out to the cheers and jeers of outsiders. Just as with one stroke, all major "current identities" in the "south" have been goaded into mutual biting and spitting. This is what comes out of destroying and delegitimizing cultural commonality.
. Advice not needed, thanks.