Is Regionalism Stupid?
Is Regionalism Stupid?
It’ll be a better world when we quit being fools about some mildewed town or ten acres of swampland just because we happened to be born there.
--- O Henry in A Cosmopolite in Café
Well said! Some of us would exclaim, and you might add, "Would somebody explain this to the Chinese, Kashmiris, Marathis, Tamilians, Assamese… a list, which if you really get down to make in all honesty, would inevitably include you as well.
With Internet getting popular, everyone agreed, how indeed the world has become smaller. In fact it became so small that we are now too close for comfort. Divisive forces, fundamentalists of all sorts including regionalists are using Internet to brag about themselves and hurling all sorts of abuse at those who remotely smell of a bias towards their region or religion.
Punjabis are busy listing their virtues and squabbling with Bengalis over who contributed the most freedom fighters.
“Amitabh is a nobody! Rajnikanth is the best,” cries a comment on a news item about Sharukh khan’s latest ad.
Any accident, arson, murder occurring in a particular region is likely to be attributed to the characteristics of that region by bloggers of the opposite region. For example, one comment on the Arushi murder case, began like these, “Why do north Indians employ so many servants...?” and vice versa for all corresponding cases and current affairs regarding south-Indians.
All this makes you agree with Kipling who verses to the effect - there is pride and rivalry between the cities of the earth and that ‘the men that breed from them, they traffic up and down, but cling to their cities’ hem as a child to the mother’s gown.’ Wonder how Kipling knew about internet traffic at that time?!
Religion, as we all know too well, has its share of clingers too. I once met a Muslim blogger at Sulekha who advocated cosmopolitanism for all Indians, but after a few mild provocations, he went completely laa-dee-dah about how Islam was a superior religion to all. Another Muslim I know has done all that is forbidden in Islam and but once when someone said something mischievous about the four-wife rule, there he was, all sleeves rolled up and fists tightened.
I guess religion and region are things that one may not believe in or live in but still call one’s own.
As for me, I am dually regionalistic because though I belong to state Kerala I was brought up in Delhi and therefore have two places to brag about. And I do it with equal fervour whenever I am in the opposite region.
Why should I think regionalism to be stupid then? Because, all said and done, in today’s world, where your 10 acres of swampland could very well get swept by Tsunami or some such unpredictable natural calamity, it may be wiser to be a true cosmopolite.
In any case, stupid or not, regionalism is as inevitable and easy to come by as human distrust and self-pride. It may be wrong but it is there.
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