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Migrants All: The Times of India
New Delhi, Nov 26: Human migration is as old as human history. And it is no different in India . For over three millennia, this land has drawn people from all over the world: Itinerant traders, inveterate travellers, passionate proselytisers, sundry adventurers, foreign diplomats and conquering armies.
New Delhi, Nov 26: Human migration is as old as human history. And it is no different in India . For over three millennia, this land has drawn people from all over the world: Itinerant traders, inveterate travellers, passionate proselytisers, sundry adventurers, foreign diplomats and conquering armies.
Beginning with the arrival of Aryan-speaking people from the plains of central Asia more than 3,000 years ago, this steady influx has made India the rich civilisational palimpsest that it is. Alongside this ceaseless cross-border flow of communities and cultures, India has had an equally long history of internal migration, displacement and relocation. Marathas, Gujaratis, Marwaris, Tamils, Telugus and Bengalis, there is not a single linguistic, ethnic or religious community in India that has not seen substantial migration in history. Just as many present-day Brahmin clans in Tamil Nadu trace their genealogy to ancient north Indian sages, so do the Saraswat Brahmins of the Konkan region, locating their ancestral roots in faraway Kashmir . In more modern times, the movement of Marwaris to Kolkata and the north-east, the Bengalis to the plains of northern India , the Gujaratis to Maharashtra and the Marathas to places as far afield as Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh and eastern Uttar Pradesh has been as substantial as it is well-documented.
The reasons for this migration may have been many, but the effect has been much the same. The emergence of a bewilderingly complex cultural mosaic — what Tagore, and after him, Nehru would famously refer to as our essential unity in diversity. What is remarkable too is that, apart from the odd case, the people of this country have been, through the ages, welcoming of outsiders in their midst. Ironically, it is only with the onset of democracy that several Indian states have seen the growth of anti- outsider movements, with cynical politicians periodically raising the bogey of nativism. In an environment where aspirations have failed to keep pace with opportunity, they have mobilised popular frustration against the threatening other — the alien Bengali, Bihari, Marwari or Madrassi, who is benefiting at the expense of the true son of the soil. Clearly, this kind of atavism strikes not just at the heart of our Constitution, which promises to all citizens the right to free movement and a free access to jobs anywhere in the country, it also goes against the grain of our secular nationalism, indeed our civilisational ethos. Today’s victimised natives, remember, are yesterday’s migrants. It’s time someone brought this simple lesson of history to the notice of the Shiv Sainiks in Maharashtra and the militant ULFA activists in Assam .
Beginning with the arrival of Aryan-speaking people from the plains of central Asia more than 3,000 years ago, this steady influx has made India the rich civilisational palimpsest that it is. Alongside this ceaseless cross-border flow of communities and cultures, India has had an equally long history of internal migration, displacement and relocation. Marathas, Gujaratis, Marwaris, Tamils, Telugus and Bengalis, there is not a single linguistic, ethnic or religious community in India that has not seen substantial migration in history. Just as many present-day Brahmin clans in Tamil Nadu trace their genealogy to ancient north Indian sages, so do the Saraswat Brahmins of the Konkan region, locating their ancestral roots in faraway Kashmir . In more modern times, the movement of Marwaris to Kolkata and the north-east, the Bengalis to the plains of northern India , the Gujaratis to Maharashtra and the Marathas to places as far afield as Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh and eastern Uttar Pradesh has been as substantial as it is well-documented.
The reasons for this migration may have been many, but the effect has been much the same. The emergence of a bewilderingly complex cultural mosaic — what Tagore, and after him, Nehru would famously refer to as our essential unity in diversity. What is remarkable too is that, apart from the odd case, the people of this country have been, through the ages, welcoming of outsiders in their midst. Ironically, it is only with the onset of democracy that several Indian states have seen the growth of anti- outsider movements, with cynical politicians periodically raising the bogey of nativism. In an environment where aspirations have failed to keep pace with opportunity, they have mobilised popular frustration against the threatening other — the alien Bengali, Bihari, Marwari or Madrassi, who is benefiting at the expense of the true son of the soil. Clearly, this kind of atavism strikes not just at the heart of our Constitution, which promises to all citizens the right to free movement and a free access to jobs anywhere in the country, it also goes against the grain of our secular nationalism, indeed our civilisational ethos. Today’s victimised natives, remember, are yesterday’s migrants. It’s time someone brought this simple lesson of history to the notice of the Shiv Sainiks in Maharashtra and the militant ULFA activists in Assam .