Brotherhood of the Subcontinentals
The basis of any nationhood is the bonding between the people. If this bond is healthy, the nation will be healthy. The nation has to be seen as the big family.
In the Subcontinent we have many apparent differences – racial, ethnic, religious persuasion, caste, subcaste, class, political leaning, etc., still we are all children of the same Subcontinent. That what divides us also binds us, weaving a tapestry of unimaginable richness and plurality. Our ancestors were born from the womb of this land, and their ashes and bones are mixed with the very soil and water of this land. Our geneology has strong and deep roots in this land. In the Subcontinent, the history would always be alive and give us comfort and warmth and tell us of our identity.
That makes us Brothers. That makes us equal in birth and belief. That makes us bound with the bonds of Subcontinental Brotherhood. And Brothers should respect and love each other.
Our strength is in unity. Together we are unbreakable. Together we are strong. Together we earn the laurels, together we mourn our losses, and together we lick our wounds, and together we rebound.
The world will respect us only as much as we respect ourselves. There is still residual shame within the hearts of the Subcontinentals. It is shame of colonization, it is shame of religious conversion, it is shame of thousands of years of untouchability, and this shame has twisted our thinking. In order to escape this shame, we try to identify ourselves with the colonizer, with the missionary and the ghazi, with the higher caste, and as a means to underline our distancing from this shame, we adopt the same methods as those of the colonizer, the converter, the casteist. We wear the clothes of the colonizer and worship his skin color, we try to be more pious than ghazi, we treat the castes considered below one’s own (rather low) caste with contempt.
We have to let go of this deep-seated shame, let go of the feeling of inferiority and to see that our roots are strong and deep. We have to open our eyes and see, that we are the most beautiful people on earth. We have to realize, that we need not prove ourselves to God and to please God by doing his work; if we keep our hearts clean, he will come and live there on his own. We should realize that caste is a label and not a hierarchy.
It may be the case that one feels a stronger affection towards one’s ethnicity or sub-nationality, to those of the same religious persuasion, etc. That is natural. However one cannot allow that to color one’s views to an extent, that one shows favoritism towards those of the same ethnicity or discrimination towards those of other subcontinental ethnicities. The bond of Brothership of the Subcontinentals demands a more enlightened perspective.
The Brotherhood of the Subcontinentals also demands a more tribal perspective, where the tribal lines are drawn at the Subcontinent. At the same time as we feel closer to each other, we need to also be aware of who are not our brothers. To our Brothers, we owe affection, respect, courtesy, consideration, tolerance, non-discrimination and warmth. To others, we owe the same, but not necessarily of the same degree. The degree of social dues we owe to others can be shown by the following hierarchy:
1. Pan-Subcontinentalists
2. Subcontinentals
3. People from neighborly countries, who are considered as extended family to the Subcontinentals
4. People from neighborly countries, whose nations are friends of the Subcontinent
5. People from further away, whose nations are friends of the Subcontinent
6. People from further away, whose nations are neutral towards the Subcontinent
7. People who are unfriendly towards the Subcontinentals
8. People who are hostile towards the Subcontinentals
9. People who have Subcontinental blood on their hands
10. Ideological enemies of Pan-Subcontinentalism
The ideological enemies of Pan-Subcontinentalism are the segregationists, the traitors and the deniers of the Brotherhood of the Subcontinentals.
One also has to look at the ideological resistance to accept Pan-Subcontinentalism historically. Just because one does not believe in Pan-Subcontinentalism, does not make him an enemy. It just means, that we are still living in an era of ignorance, an era of narrow-mindedness, an era in which the spirit of Brotherhood has not been liberated in his heart. One needs to give each soul the time to receive and embibe the message of Brotherhood.
The ideological enemies of Pan-Subcontinentalism would be the elites of various ethnicities, who have acquired vested interests in seeing the Subcontinent fragmented, elites who use the false ethnicity-based nationalism to cordon off their own enclave in the Subcontinent and consider it their feudal property, elites who profit from closed societies and markets, elites who quarante their own people in order to lord over them. These elites need to embrace the enlightenment of the Subcontinental Brotherhood, and to look for new ways to consolidate their preexisting influence; or these elites need to be overthrown.
The elites will tell you, that their ethnicities cannot live together with other ethnicities of the Subcontinent for some reason or another, they will manufacture lies of past conflicts or present them to you selectively or distort the historical truths, or they will tell you that reconciliation is impossible. These are segregationists with vested interests.
There will be others, who will be working for outside powers, and not let the unification and consolidation of the Subcontinent proceed at their behest, as the outside powers feel threatened by the emergence of a powerful Subcontinent. These are traitors.
There will still be others who will directly attack the foundations of Pan-Subcontinentalism, because of their prejudices or their misplaced ideological loyalties. These are deniers.
If the segregationists, traitors and deniers do not relent and make way for Pan-Subcontinentalism to realize itself, then they are to be considered enemies and should be crushed without remorse.
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