It is indeed deplorable to see an absolute lack of pride in our own culture and faith in our ability as a growing economic and military power. This subservient attitude of ours has been the bane of our nation ever since the diversity of our country led to disintegration, initially, and then to foreign rule. This dates back to the Muslim invasion of our country. It seems even centuries of pillage and rape hasn't been able to cement us as a nation despite our diversity. Even today, that lack of faith in our "Unity" as a nation makes us fawn before almost anyone. "Indianness", it seems, is a word devoid of any meaning. Because we actually are isolated communities of Tamils, Gujratis, Assamese, Malyalis, Punjabis........ juxtaposed, but never bonded. We are a country ridden with differences with no feeling of belonging. And the concern is, we'll remain that way and keep fawning, lacking faith in ourselves as a united nation and be ridiculed by the rest of the world. The ills plaguing India outweighs whatever is good about Indianness....... that's why the world has a condescending attitude towards us as a nation.
give us a break....george is not that important that we have to attend to his each and every mumblings...everyone has reservations....there is no insult in it....
How does one man quoting his faith and his beliefs insult another? Where in that interview does Bush insult Mahatma Gandhi - the person - at all? News channels and websites will first write such articles and when trouble does begin, start debating over how secular/liberal our country is. This article is probably the only insult to the spirit of the man it mentions. This columnist is probably an idiot or willfully malignant and is better off not writing at all.
Its a personal decision and guys should not force something on anyone.Its something like someone decides which movie someone else must watch or what sort of dressing should be followed by someone else
Good Day! I had an opportunity to read the article by title "India ignores insults to Mahatma".
As an Indian citizen, with due respect to all the National leaders, I would like to make the following comment.
Respect to any person, be it a leader or a common man, is not expressed only in one way. Respect resides in the heart, in the actions, not in rituals. While it might be the belief of a person to pay respects at a Samadhi, another human being has all rights to keep his respect towards the same person, even without visiting the Samadhi.
Being a democratic country, we should not expect/insist that anybody who comes in , should follow the so proclaimed protocol.
We should show the maturity, to leave the decision, to each individual, unless it is a matter of national security or National integrity.
I regret that such an article was published on the web space of such a famous and widely popular portal.
'Athithi Devo Bhava' .. Is a statement showing maturity.. we do not imprison our guests in our paradigm.. What is so blasphemous in not visiting Raj Ghat.. why do we take umbrage.. we must learn to respect others' feelings.. instead of imposing ourselves on them.. We have Indians who malign Gandhiji for political gains.. we have Indians who kill Mahatma daily.. What do we do ? we hang their portraits.. So lets grow up.. Its immaturity on our part to believe that all those who do not think like WE do are insulting us.. Or we'll be always in conflict.. and always at WAR..
Its time we recogonised that there are people who belive in faiths that could be completely different from ours. I dont find anything wrong in Sausdi king refusing to visit Rajghat on the basis of his belief. Its his choice and learn to respect it.
