1 post tagged “diversity”

It was a fine morning of a Sunday in December, the cool month of 2008 during my morning walk; I witnessed a fight between two groups of street dogs belonging to our colony and the neighboring colony.

I stood for a few minutes at a distance and watched the free entertainment.

The groups consisted of black, white, brown and a combination of these colored male and female dogs.

Few puppies were also present.

They were ferociously barking and tried to bite each other; but they were running up and down.

Suddenly a stone fell on the group of dogs from somewhere; the dogs ran away to their respective colonies barking.

Yes, the stone came from a neighboring house.

The owner of the house was known to me and he complained that it a nuisance every time that the street dogs never allow him to sleep on a weekend.

I shared his sorrow and pacified him saying that we have to inform the Panchayat officials to control the growing population of these canines.

He agreed with me and went in to sleep again probably.

I continued my walk, thinking about the morning sight.

Groupism is not only common among animals; it is with human beings too.

We know groups are formed by caste, religion, gender, language, state, district, colony, working place etc., etc.,

Groups are needed in a society to live with like-minded or behavior people.

Generally groups help the members for good or bad.

Some groups are so strong that they dominate and try to suppress the other group.

Even sometimes physical violence through fighting for a cause is being seen as I saw the group of dogs fighting.

So forming groups and live in group is a typical character of our fore-generation of animals.

The animal instinct still persists and ingrained in our minds probably a trace level.

Political parties play with such groups and try to capture power.

Groupism leads to segregation which is good to fight for a cause, but it is bad when fanaticism build in.

The emotional unity in a group often brings in violence between groups.

There is unity among the members of a group to hate or like another group or groups.

Although religious teachings, even the National Constitution say that caste, religion, gender and language which can divide people and cause confusions among groups should not be entertained.

Still some people in every group are over enthusiastic and create problems and violence.

They generally think of protecting the interests of the members of a group.

Such activities protect a group and safety is rendered.

Some groups live together in a particular locality.

Thus they try to flock together and for a strong group.

For example, Iyers live in agraharms, Muslims live in specific localities and similarly the Christians.

These are the infra structure of our society.

Such a culture is now changed due to the migration of people to various parts of the country and other nations.

Even in America, the black community lives in specific pockets where the white population does not like to live.

Groups have to coexist in a society.

Groupism is a necessary evil; we need it at the same time we do not need it too.

Since inter group marriages are very popular nowadays, the concentration on groupism is getting diluted.

Still the dilution is not very much, but it may take a long time.

Let the groups work on the basis of goodwill and the national feeling grow faster than groupism.

Let us say we are Indians, not Malayali, Tamil, Telugu, Kannadigas, Marathis, Punjabis, Biharis etc., and separate ourselves.

‘Unity in diversity and diversity in unity’ – the words of Pundit Nehru be followed for the stability and peace of our country and the world at large.