Pride where India is concerned. The narrative on Pride has, more often than not, been hugely politicised by factions in power and persistently. Referring to the contemporary scene in the light of India’s iconic cultural ambassadors, she says these are the ones who have actually defined the true India.
Swami Vivekananda is one of India`s better known cultural ambassadors who introduced Hinduism to America way backThe definitions of cultural heritage and history have changed drastically over the last decade. As india enters into her 75 th year of independence, and the nation headed by its arguably most successful prime minister narendra modi, a wave of change has engulfed age-old notions, theories and systems that had been developed over seven decades. Change is, by far, the most constant thing in india today. And, that change has triggered severe polarisation across industries.
For one, there has been a tectonic shift in the very concept of pride and national pride where india is concerned. The narrative on pride has, more often than not, been hugely politicised by factions in power and persistently. In the recent past, the shift in power -both politically as well as across myriad platforms associated – has led to a concurrent shift in the narrative of pride itself. It isn’t without reason that there’s a drastic change in the very identity of the cultural ambassador itself.
Among India’s best – Swami Vivekananda
Among India’s better known cultural ambassador is Swami Vivekananda best known in the United States for his ground-breaking speech to the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions in which he introduced Hinduism to America calling for religious tolerance and an end to fanaticism.
Narendranath Dutta, who was the chief disciple of the 19 th century mystic and the founder of Ramakrishna Mission Ramakrishna Parmahansa, who went on to become Swami Vivekananda was a key figure in the introduction of Vedanta and Yoga to the West and is credited with raising the profile of Hinduism to that of a world religion.
Sardar Patel statue in GujaratIron Man given credit
So, while for years, history has been according credit albeit sparingly to the Iron Man of India, the creation of the world’s largest statue of Sardar Patel in Gujarat brought focus back to a leader who, most felt, had been ignored by the Congress Party since Independence. And, with it was the narrative on Sardar Patel and his contribution to India’s freedom struggle and the very concept of India itself. That apart, leaders like Veer Savarkar, Bhagat Singh, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, Lal Bahadur Shastri and several others, who had been relegated to mere mention in history and India’s freedom heritage, were refurbished and repackaged by the new regime.
Files were reopened, films were made, campaigns were initiated and history was rewritten only to provide the much-deserved platform to the heroes of yore. That they would have to be projected as freedom fighters who didn’t receive the accolades they deserved and were, concurrently, ambassadors for India, was a subjective view but one that was, after decades, voiced and acted upon.
Distinct narrative against India
There has been a distinct narrative with regard to India in particular and Asia in general where the Western world is concerned. The prejudice that has been fanned over centuries, against India had engulfed world history and geopolitical scenarios to such an extent that the world’;s oldest civilisation’s achievements had been completely glossed over. It was important to identify leaders and personalities from over centuries in India and provide them the deserving platform so that they play the roles of India’s ambassadors instead of the paltry few weak characters who had been packaged as India’s offering to its people and the world.
The prejudice towards India’s systems whether they were economic or social welfare, administrative or cultural, was legendary. While the West chose to focus on India’s caste system and not on its achievements, it indulged in the very racism that it claimed to identify and expose.
The issue of segregation and ostracism has no physical limits and is exercised by the powerful beyond borders and across continents. It wasn’t just an all-India phenomenon as claimed and propagated over centuries. That discrimination was also not restricted to religion or groups, was a reality that was given the go-by.
Aboriginal, native leader of their lot
Whether it was the Aboriginals in Australia that were given the short end of the stick and discriminated against by the White invaders or the plight of native American tribes in North America, hate and discrimination existed all over the world. Like Wilma Mankiller, a Native American (Cherokee Nation) activist, social worker, community developer and the first woman elected to serve as Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation who was the cultural ambassador for her lot. Wilma was heavily inspired by the social and political movements of the 1960s, and went on to become involved in the Occupation of Alcatraz.
For five years in the early 1970s, she was employed as a social worker, focusing mainly on children’s issues. After returning to Oklahoma in 1976, Mankiller was hired by Cherokee Nation as an economic stimulus coordinator. Her expertise at documentation ensured she became a successful grant writer. By the early 1980s, she was directing the newly created Community Development Department of the Cherokee Nation. As Director she designed and supervised innovative community projects allowing rural citizens to identify their own challenges and, through their labour, participate in solving them.
Similarly, Australia’s aboriginal inventor and writer David Unaipon features on the Australian $50 everywhere in Australia. Unaipon began his education at the age of seven at the Point McLeay Mission School and got renowned for his intelligence. He was the first Aboriginal writer to publish in English, the author of numerous articles in newspapers and magazines, including the Sydney Daily Telegraph, retelling traditional stories and arguing for the rights of Aborigines. Some of Unaipon’s traditional Aboriginal stories were published in a 1930 book, Myths and Legends of the Australian Aboriginals, under the name of anthropologist William Ramsay Smith. They have recently been republished in their original form, under David Unaipon’s name,as Legendary Tales of Australian Aboriginal.
PM, President, Ambedkar lead
Back in India, while the world flays the largest democracy for discrimination on the grounds of caste, in history books and across media, till kingdom come, fact remains that her Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Ram Nath Kovind, both at the highest echelons of political ladder belong to the backward castes in the social strata. The President was born on 1 October 1945, in a village in the Kanpur district of Uttar Pradesh into a family of the Kori caste, known as underprivileged even among Dalits. He practised as a lawyer in the Supreme Court and served as a BJP member of the upper house of Parliament from 1994 to 2006. And then, he was also the governor of Bihar state before going on to become the President of India. Why, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi belongs to the ‘Modh Ghanchi’ caste of Gujarat, categorised as Other Backward Class (OBC).
Most importantly, India’s Constitution itself has been penned by none-other-than Babasaheb Ambedkar, yet another Dalit. So much for discrimination and its effect in reality. While caste does remain a decisive factor in the lives of the nation’s people, that most of those in the lowest strata have managed to achieve great heights and notch success that few could boast of, is a reality. Now, can there be better cultural ambassadors than these stalwarts standing tall in the Indian political hemisphere?