AN OUTSIDER IN DELHI. The hornets nest has again been stirred up. The ugly face of regionalism is up again; A young man is dead, people lighting candles at Jantar Mantar (the official protest site of Delhi),newspapers are writing realms on the issue, the news channels are highlighting the issue of the people from outside Delhi facing racial slur in the city. Like it had happened earlier, this time too this issue would go from page one to page 3 of the newspapers, and then vanish altogether in a few days. The bitterness and uneasiness among a community would however continue the feeling of alienation has been bolstered. It is not only about a particular community, but people in general who migrate to the city for job, education, business etc and who stick out as different from others because of their dressing, religion, culture, language etc. But whose Dilli is this anyway? The hindi speaking people? The Hindus? The Muslims? The Punjabi speaking? The vegetarian? the roti Subji eating? Delhi is being continuously inhabited since the sixth century AD. people were Hindu, Buddhist, then after the invasions from the west and north (1192 AD, fall of Prithviraj Chauhan), muhammadan (Afghan, Turkik, Mughals). Then Sikhism come and also come the Christians. After partition come the exodus of refugees from newly formed Pakistan. In the new republic of India, everybody had (and still has) the right to come to Delhi and settle. While the city of Delhi saw such a plethora of dynasties and rules with their origin far away from the city, it become a potpourri of cultures, food, eating habit, tradition, etc. Even Hindi is spoken in this city with many twists (Haryanvi, Punjabi, purbi etc), and we eat Afghani chicken, Khamiri roti , Pashwari nun ( North Indian food has a distinct touch of the food habit of all the invaders through the centuries). Even a new language Urdu developed here 5 centuries back because of mixing of religion. Dressing changed over centuries to become distinctly Western. But in spite of such mixing of population of diversity, there are some outsiders here in the city and some insiders. I have been searching for the insiders of the city for the last so many years, I havent found one. All I met has a history of migration, some recent, some past. I believe there should be no question about insider/outsider in the city. All are delhites so long they stay here. That words such as Madrasi, Chinki etc are used to describe people is trivial matter (people would continue to do that, a sardar would be called a sardar, NE people would be called chinki in private, a south India would be called a Madrasi, and so and so, and that we would call each other as such even among ourselves), but there should be no discrimination and violence on the basis of these differences. It is about respecting others and being respectable. It is not about politics, TRP, etc but about the cosmopolitan spirit of the city. Administration and authorities should exhibit intolerance to such racialism, and these incidents at the very capital of the country is detrimental to the very federal structure of the country.
Posted on: Mon, 03 Feb 2014 07:24:50 +0000
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