Priya Pathiyan
Deputy Editor
India has been celebrating being a republic since January 26, 1950. It’s a day to affirm that India is a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic that assures its citizens justice, equality, and liberty. But have you ever given pause to ponder what it really means to be Indian?
When you talk to those who were around at the time of India’s independence, they speak about how the excitement there would be around Republic Day and Independence Day every year. How public buildings would be lit up and people would drive around to get their fill of the illuminations. These are the same people, many in their 80s now, who automatically stand up smartly with pride every time they hear the strains of the national anthem starting up. The ones who make it a point to watch the Republic Day parade on TV year after year instead of planning getaways on the convenient long weekend that the national holiday affords!
For that generation, their identity as Indians is clear. But for us who came later, who didn’t suffer under the colonial yoke, who were born in a free India, Indianness is less tangible. In a country that is divided by language, dress, cuisine, even ethnicity, what is it that holds us together in nationhood? Some say it is a common adversary, be it the British then and warring neighbours now, that binds us. But that depends on external stimuli rather than internal patriotic fervour.
Caught up in our regional identities, sometimes we can feel like an outsider in this diverse universe that we call India, but paradoxically, feel like an insider when in a distant country. Isn’t it pleasantly ironical that when we travel outside India, we often feel more Indian? Caught up in our regional identities, sometimes we can feel like an outsider in this diverse universe that we call India, but paradoxically, feel like an insider when in a distant country. Isn’t it pleasantly ironical that when we travel outside India, we often feel more Indian? To watch a multi-generational family of Indian tourists playing antakshari on the banks of Lake Lucerne. To feel great pride when talking about the wealth of Indian textiles with Yuzen silk artists in Kyoto. To share an eye roll with a fellow Indian when someone orders a “chai-tea” at a coffeeshop in Seattle.
Travel has that rare quality of opening the mind, of allowing us to view ourselves from a different perspective. Of going beyond today’s tropes of Bollywood, spicy food, and chai to reach the core that is truly Indian, rooting us in the culture of the sub-continent that goes back thousands of years. To sense the essence of this high-context, supportive society. Talkative, even argumentative like Nobel Prize-winning Indian economist Amartya Sen put it. Chaotic and colourful, skilled and sensitive, industrious and intelligent, loving and lively. There’s 1.4 billion of us… and counting. This is the year that they believe that India will surpass China as the world’s most populous country. Perhaps the right time to think deeper and define who we really are.
TravelDine’s focus has always been to help you do this by exploring the unseen in India. This week, our Senior Feature Editor Sushmita Srivastav plunges you into the pleasures of Arunachal Pradesh, the ruggedly ravishing region that is on everyone’s wish list right now.