Thread by @nuts2406

Growing up in a mining colony in the 1970, your defining identity was that of an Indian. At home, we spoke different languages, worshipped different gods and celebrated different festivals, but outside, we were Indian.
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“Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Isai. Aapas mein hai bhai bhai”, was not just a slogan for us. From the sheer diversity of food each of our kitchens churned out, to the festivals that were celebrated, everything was a living personification of “Unity in Diversity/ Unekta mein Ekta”.
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As we grew older, we continued to see the country through our ‘Indian’ lenses. The food we ate, the movies we watched, even the people we dated; everything was cosmopolitan, secular, Indian. Our Indianness was our identity, and we viewed everything through our secular lens.
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Long after the Babri Masjid was brought down. Long after Godhra. Long after the Hindutva ideology established itself in the political landscape. I continued believing it was only a fringe element that supported the divisionary politics that were tearing the country apart.
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It was only after 2019 that I started questioning whether the secular nation I thought I had grown up in actually existed or if it had been a mirage.
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It was on the eve of the Bhoomi Poojan of the Ram Mandir at Ayodhya, that I finally articulated what I had been thinking for awhile- had the nation I loved ever existed?
I even poured my grief into a post on Facebook.
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My friends wrote to tell me that they were happy I had articulated what they could never say. That they were mourning the secularism that they had grown up with but which no longer existed.
“Thank you for saying this. If I said it nobody would have listened”, said three.
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They had all grown up in colonies like the one I grew up in. Through their childhood and youth, they had never felt they were any different. So firm was their belief in an Indian identity, some had even married Hindu men.
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Some of their closest friends were still Hindu and their families still went on holidays with Hindu families. However, despite that, they could still sense the alienation. They recognized that things were no longer as they had been, and they missed those days.
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It was heartbreaking to hear the words they left unsaid. These are the people who have lost most with the rise of fundamentalism. They had identified themselves as secular Indians, but were left bereft when that categorization was done away with.
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But even in their heartbreak, I saw a glimmer of hope. They too were mourning a secular India that had once existed, but no longer did. But the fact that they felt the vacuum proved that the India I thought I grew up in had actually existed.
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What never existed cannot be summoned, but what has been lost can certainly be reclaimed. Secularism can certainly be reclaimed.

As Tagore said, “Into that heaven of freedom, let my country awake.”

~Finis~

A slightly longer version
medium.com/@nuts2406/let-…