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"Surprisingly, the contradictions extended even to fights. We found that by the fourth day, the Indian delegates were even staying at different places and coming at different times to the conference. So I understand that in your country, team work is difficult as Indians seem to differentiate themselves a lot more than integrate unlike other countries.
We are an integrating nation and we help each other."

This episode left strong impressions in my mind about how much a divided nation we are. I am deeply pained to see that we are not learning lessons from our own past and from others, and are pursuing policies that divide the nation more than integrate the same. Our representatives whom we elected seem to play this game very well, keep us divided for their statistics of votes, get us to fight, and keep managing their show.

Reservations in higher education at the cost of merit are divisive and wrongly timed.

Our country is on fast growth curve. Just when it was being noticed by every one for its potential, our politicians seem to put the country backward. The most disturbing thing is their insensitivity to listen to people’s voices and continued adamancy to pursue their lop-sided policies.

We are a divided nation. Our minds are divisive as we are taught from birth to view each other in terms of the caste, and sub-caste or gothra, community, religious affiliation, language, regional affiliation, etc., various variables. Because we are taught from the early childhood to view each other in terms of these variables, our self-concept and behavior towards each other is determined by the classification we hold of each other. When we judge the other person by virtue of his/her affiliations, we undermine or over-estimate the capability of the other person as per the stereotypes we hold. When such stereotypes are shown towards us by others, we spend time fighting such stereotypes if they are to our disadvantage. When we discover that the other person does not believe in our internal capability and is attributing to us competencies by virtue of his stereotypes he holds about us and not by virtue of our real capabilities, it hurts and we engage ourselves to prove what we really are capable.

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* Contributed by -
Dr. T. V. Rao,
Formerly Professor, IIMA,
Chairman, TVRLS,
Ahmedabad.