15th August-64th indian Independence Day, the country named after Indus River, Pakistan-India for the unitiated.

15th August is a day of a cesarean section of the world's oldest civilization. Its a day of joy and extreme pain in the subcontinent . India gained its independence on 15th August 1947 and Pakistan on 14th August 1947 and on the same day people from two states of India- Punjab and Bengal were divided leading to the world biggest mass-movement of people and an accompanying genocide of unfathomable proportions.Punjab and Bengal , today parts of these two states are Pakistan and Bangladesh respectively, , were the most affluent, powerfully violent under the British rule. Bengal and Punjab were leading a violent resistance in India against the Britain with a strong intellectual backing by the elites in the states. Most of the world only know of Gandhi's non-violent struggle but unlike the popular imagination of the western world, some Indians were willing to show the other door to its European oppressors.The midwife of this cesarean section was an immoral monarchy based in a tiny Island described by an adjective and having some really wet and horrible weather, distasteful food of boiled animal body-parts..named Great Britain, which now channels its high morality in the hall of nations with virtues like " justice"," democracy " and "rule of law".The day is also the beginning of a tale of two nations separated at birth almost 60 years ago. The two nations were from the same parenthood, entwined in family relationships whose roots went back centuries. There was bonds of blood that was built over 9000 years of recorded and proved history. There have been bonds of culture, food and language, music, shared heroes etc.They were like brothers in a Bollywood tragedy who were separated at birth and subsequent accidental misfortunes . The only difference is unlike in the movies, the brothers have kept pulling themselves further apart from each other. When these brothers went to far away lands, people mistook one for the another. They looked so much alike that when bad events happened on the eleventh day of September, the brothers were suspected with equal measure , without discrimination and with equal disdain. Pakistanis and Indians are now inextricably linked in a world of fear and suspicion.Pakistan for the uninitiated means "land of the pure" and India was named after the river " Indus" , which flows most of its course in Pakistan bringing water and resources to the "Sapta Sindhu" delta of Pakistan. This delta is the breadbasket of Pakistan , a food giver to its people. While Pakistan's food source is nurtured by a river that named its arch enemy, Indian civilization has its most prehistoric evidence of its culture at the Mohenjo Daro, Harappa in today's Pakistan.In this piece, I would like to focus first on the concept of purity that has historically driven peoples to commit the most gruesome acts of cruelty and genocide. This drive for purity of genes, purity of breed and the search of an unpolluted pedigree has been the nature of man to distinguish one from the other. Although, this serves a purpose of elimination of prospective partners and mates in the animal kingdom, its extension in the human world , as vehicle to distinguish, historically has led to bloodshed or pure genocide. Hitler used it to devastating effect in the search for purity of the Aryan race and the mass murder of Jews. In a similar way in this context Pakistan was born with an idea of a "land of the pure "..i.e purity of its thought, its blood, its pedigree of purity and its existence. In this path it has systematically, official estimates do not exist, eliminated its Hindu, Sindhi and Christian minority. Pakistan did not stop at that but the interpretation of purity was extended beyond the difference of religions to differences among a single religious group, Sunni and Shias in Pakistan's case , that led to killings between these sects as well as the kafirs or deserters-basically Muslim immigrants from India and finally the Bengali Muslims in the early 70 s that eventually led to the separation of Pakistan. Here one should note that Bangladesh , the new nation, is an Islamic state but for Pakistans' puritans it was not Islamic enough.The reality of modern world is such that this very concept of purity is flawed. Peoples, countries, religion places do not remain pure forever. Human beings are the most successful species on this planet because of the concept of adulteration and impurity. Even genetic scientists have scientifically proven that consecutive generation of inbreeding in communities as an effort to maintain purity leads to birth defects and weaker genes. This is the essential difference that has kept the two brothers at birth from reconciling again with each other. If Pakistan can be called the "land of the pure", India essentially is the land of the impure. An impurity that arises from the sheer diversity of its peoples, thoughts, ideas, culture , food and places. This impurity is what has made India a realistic concept than Pakistan,whose core foundation is on a belief that is against human behavior in the modern world. The concept of identity is also inextricably linked to this idea of purity and when people exist in a multitude of identities then the concept of a pure state or land is impractical.I would not doubt that the people who founded Pakistan were not aware of this but politics is not effective in being a assimilator of people with different identities. Politics and Politicians thrive in a paradigm that promotes division and dissimilation in human societies. It is easier to canonize people against one another by highlighting their differences, and making one a target for the misfortune of the other.So, while Indians are being killed, shot and executed by Australians youth for their joblessness, politicians including the one in the United States continue to target an immigrant group, Indians in this case, to channel the problems of unemployment and job loss. It is an easier route for politics than embark on a difficult task of creating jobs.
Indians should not feel highfalutin about this incidental concept of Pakistan because despite pedigree of good thoughts that India was blessed at its birth , its democracy has been marred with deceitful manipulation of its masses by its elite politicians. I suspect Raj Thackeraj without having any meaningful understanding of philosophy exploited these divisions in his favor by instigating the unemployed youth of Maharashtra in a fight against the migrants. The irony is that the Thackeray themselves are migrants from the state of MP and proves his debate over outsiders meaningless.When Narendra Modi, VHP and the BJP called Gujaratis to embark on the path to annihilate the "Muslims" by leaving the path of "Gandhigiri" as he spoke at a rally in Gujarat "We will shown them what happens when we leave Gandhigiri", he is asking them to abandon the impure existence and purify the state of its Muslims. Almost always and every time politics and politicians are completely responsible to stoke the anger and create divisions by using the impurities that come from our diversity.George Bush famously called all non-believers and non- aligned nations as "those who are against us" and the other or believers "those with us".  So, while the republican pogrom is on to cleanse the federal of United States of "the outsider" immigrants and achieve the puritanism that has always existed, note the hint of irony, in its existence since Biblical times.The Congress government,Nehru-Gandhi Dynasty put this concept to good use in their more than 30 years of rule including the Sikh riots of 84 in Delhi (following the assassination of Indira Gandhi-Rajiv Gandhi famously said " When a big tree falls the earth shakes" in a response to the government pogram of genocide unleashed with help of Youth Congress leaders in Delhi.), the inaction during the demolition of Babri Masjib in Ayodhya, the numerous religious and caste riots in Bihar and finally the mother of all...the partition of the Indian subcontinent.Despite these above events and the history tainted in blood and brutality , India and Indians continue to support and nurture the concept of impurity. This impurity is why India exists in all its splendor and it is why many human histories from around the globe has existed in its people and continue today and well into the future. On this momentous occasion of the day of the 64th anniversary of our Independence, I urge my fellow citizens that they strive to understand this impurity , to not divide ourselves but to enjoy its beauty, its rewards and comprehend India's beauty in its splendid impurity.