Proud to be an Indian or a Hindustani?

I am Proud to be an Indian! I am proud because of its immense culture, heritage and most of all for its unity in diversity. Probably this is the only country with so many different languages and traditions. Maybe a Bengali can never enjoy sharing a pure vegetarian meal with a Kashmiri Pandit and maybe a Punjabi can not converse comfortably with a Keralite without a translator to help them, but still they all know, believe and are proud to be an ‘INDIAN’ !

But on second thoughts what’s there to be so proud about being an ‘INDIAN’ because probably we are not living in INDIA at all, we are actually living in HINDUSTAN! Yes, that’s what it is – HINDUSTAN, a land of Hindus. As far as I know India is a sovereign country where all religions are equal and every citizen of India is given Right of Speech as a fundamental right, irrespective of his caste, colour or creed. But not in Hindustan, here groups like Shiv Sena can create an issue by challenging someone’s right of speech and right of opinion.

What difference does it make if a person in his country feels that it would have been nice if Pakistan should have been allowed in IPL? I am sure Shahrukh Khan is not the only person in India who feels that way, there are thousands of people who support this thought. Would Shiv Sena ask all those people to leave ‘THEIR’ country and go to Pakistan? Just because Mr. Khan is a huge media personality and a Muslim does not give them the liberty to use him as some stupid pawn in their publicity gimmick! And to top it all, they are not only criticizing Shahrukh Khan for his opinion but also threatening to stop screening of his movie. ‘My Name is Khan’ is not a personal property of Mr. Khan that Shiv Sena wants to ban it to punish Shahrukh. They fail to understand that there are thousands of people who have a stake in the movie and to make them suffer because of a stupid fancy of theirs is just not right!

I so wish that Saza-E-Kalapani would have still been in existence and we could have sent these Shiv Sena people and all their supporters to some secluded island where they could have lived happily with their ideologies and dictatorship without bothering us!

And therefore I am not proud to be a ‘Hindustani’ because we tolerate such groups and do nothing to get rid of them but I am and will always be proud to be an INDIAN!