My dear Fellow Indians,
Congratulations! As we proudly celebrate
our 67 years of independence, we must com mitt ourselves to genuinely free
ourselves from pettiness, free ourselves from our prejudices towards fellow
beings, free ourselves from treating a fellow Indian less than ourselves and we
must certainly shelve the arrogance that God favors us and not others.
We must also commit to defend the freedom of others, we must cherish the
otherness of others and let every one freely breath, drink, eat, wear or believe
whatever suits them, and crush the thoughts of forcing others to behave the way
we want them to behave. No one shall be a slave in free
India.
An Indian is an Indian is an Indian,
period.
Adivasis, Atheists, Bahais, Bos, Buddhists, Chrsitians, Dalits, Hindus, Jains,
Jewish, Muslim, Sikhs, Tribals, Zoroastrians and every possible grouping. We are
Brown, Black, White, Yellow and green with envy, magar phir bhi dil hai
Hindustani.
race, nationality, ethnicity, language, culture and religion. We see God as one,
none and many; and in every form; male, female, genderless and non-existent,
being and non-being, nameless and with innumerable names.
mulch-faith, multicultural, multi-regional and multi-linguistic society, where
we have come to accept and respect every which way people have lived their
lives. For over 5000 years, India has been a beacon of pluralism – it has
embraced Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Baha’i and Zoroastrianism to include in
the array of the indigenous religions; Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism.
and acting as one people, one people within a nation and a community and one
people globally. It’s like home when we are conflict free. I do hope each one
of us purges any bias towards the other, there is joy in being free from
ill-will. Try to be free from it this day forward… free from anything that
prevents you from being a part of the whole.
Our combined philosophies
believe in one world ; Hinduism describes the world as Vasudaiva Kutumbukum, the
whole world is one family, the idea of Ek Onkar(one) in Sikhism, you are all
created from the same couple as Quraan puts it and Jesus embraced every one
regardless of who any one is… similar philosophies are grounded in all our
religions.
A few don’t follow their own heritage and resort to
theivary, loot, murder, terrorism, rioting, rapes, infanticide and other evils
that destroy the fabric of the society, but a majority of every group goes
about their own way, living their life with struggles and ease and don’t even
bother others. We should build upon the 99% of population and not on the less
than 1% that does not follow any principles.
forward, make a pledge to yourselves to talk about in terms of we Indians – and
not Malyalee, Gujarati, Bengali…. or Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Isaee. Don’t expect
others to jump and say the same, give them the time and if you are consistent
for at least a year, you will see others emulating you.
movement, since 1947 every country has been liberated from colonialism. Indian
democracy is a shining example to the world, where the people have peacefully
transferred the powers.
We are inherently secular and economically
capitalistic. We believe in “live-and-let-live” life style, which is the essence
of capitalism.
Through the years we have expressed
the highest degree of maturity on handling extreme situations; the more
divergent opinions we hear, the larger our heart grows, the bigger our embrace
would be and we can cushion more differences. Let’s continue to honor the
concept that there is always another side to the story, as finding the truth is
our own responsibility. I am proud of my heritage and am proud to be an
Indian-American.
Jai Hind
Committed to cohesive societies
www.MikeGhouse.net
http://mikeghouseforindia.blogspot.com/
PATRIOTIC SONGS
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Mike Ghouse is a speaker, thinker and a
writer
on pluralism, politics, peace, Islam, Israel, India, interfaith, and cohesion at work
place. He is committed to building a Cohesive America and offers
pluralistic solutions on issues of the day at www.TheGhousediary.com. He believes in
Standing up for others and a
book with the same title is coming up. Mike has a strong presence on national
and local TV, Radio and Print Media. He is a frequent guest on Sean Hannity show on
Fox TV, and a commentator on national radio networks, he contributes weekly to
the Texas Faith Column at Dallas Morning News; fortnightly
at Huffington post; and
several other periodicals across the world. His personal site www.MikeGhouse.net indexes all his work
through many links.