Passionate about Himachal

India dividing into smaller parties, actually I found a very uncanny yet true resemblance. It was same way when British came to India! Smaller regional kings! Or for that when Mughals came to India. Totally divided Indian system into smaller regional outfits. Being a student of history I always try to find what went wrong in past. And no matter where I look in Indian history it’s just the lack of strong federal system. For that matter India as of now has federal system. But look around, all smaller political parties working day and night for their personal gains. Every one has its own agenda! For any government it’s very hard to implement its own plan as when they fight elections it’s quite tough to win majority and for that they always make a common minimum plan (CMP) and rely on that after coming to power. Every one is power hungry, no one is nationalism hungry. One political party was never able to attain its own religious agenda, for sure that was their parental party’s dream but they are now skeptical supporting the political outfit on that issue, reason is very clear, they now know, in current situation its almost impossible to carry forward with religious agenda whether India is world’s second largest home to another so called minority or lack of total majority they can envision in parliament.

Issues are shifting with time, no one wants to become unsung hero, and every one needs identity. Now every one wants to see his or her face on media or want to interact directly. Militancy was one reason for that in one North Indian state, one community felt alienated from another dominated society and revolted but then it seems majority itself is alienated now, I wonder if now majority can have say in every matter! In East, Naga outfits are now coming for round table discussions after so many years of war and ULFA’s back is broken totally. Point is what was the problem to their leadership to understand which they understood after so many years of fighting and so much loss of life.

But again every major political party broke into smaller units, should we call this, that leader of the party was unable to keep all together or hunger for power from those smaller units?

To find the problem we need to find our smaller regional issues then move upward federalism. In this experiment which we started this year and are learning so much, at start everyone was so up with the flag to do so much for the state, and now when the real work is in sight people wants to find how to gain benefit for their own personal gains or to build their own outfit rather than building one larger and stronger organization.

When we started this small group from our very own state, people criticized us for regionalism, but from the start the idea was to understand the nature and mentality of our very own region and find the issues which we all raise in daily life. We are more connected or to say more aware of our region so we wanted to understand why everything is disintegrating.

And lesson is very well learned! Most of the members try to find some negativity and instead of making it positive, instead of building one stronger society based on strong ethics and ideas, venture into smaller scale. People have a grunt that its tough to reach to top management or leadership when the outfit is larger. Larger corporations, like Infy to IBM to Tata are managed on hierarchal basis. In social causes if we keep one leader at top and overwhelm him or her with too much work, believe he or she would run away, too much work. Socialism on the other hand is now supported by capitalism also. After all money generation to support social system is the main pillar. So most of us are running our day-to-day lives also! However for sure to add humane touch leaders needs to be easily accessible and for those yearly or quarterly interactions should be available, it boosts energy for cadres as well as gives personal touch. But this is a Himachali and Himachal effort so hierarchy or being boss is not tried by anyone, these are posts for name cause and this is pure volunteer effort.

This so called socio-capitalism is new thing and people around the world need to be educated and guided. World’s two most rich people (Bill gates and Warren Buffet) are donating almost all of their wealth and time for social causes and that’s happening because they first made wealth then moved to change system. Every one feels bad looking at apathetic situation of poor’s or weakness of the society. But in this new scenario things are supported by money, not hunger strikes or street revolts. Way of fighting has changed. My point is simple, apply humane approach and work together for the society and results would be wonderful.

My Himachal is one such effort and in our first year itself we did less talk and more work, we have moved much farther from just talk, in fact now its time for walk and only walk. So seeing names on news media or making few people popular is not agenda here, agenda is to unite Himachalis together, build a stronger social identity for them so that language and culture is well preserved, socially interact with each and every one and take care of our owns those who need help whether they stay in India or any part of the world. Recently I was talking to a Himachali who moved to Delhi few years ago, I approached to join and work together but the answer was plain rude, we are now pucca Dilliwalas. Why any one who is outside and financially stronger is unable to say we are Himachalis! Are we giving them enough reasons to say we are Himachalis and that with proud? If we keep disintegrating I wonder there would be any one interested in being proud of Himachali culture, because we are telling them we are here to build everything for our own personal gains and not for society. And for critics if we are not good enough Himachalis I wonder how good Indians we could be?

We are grateful to have few great personalities who are supporting this cause with their finances as well as guidance and we seek more to come forward and identify genuinely this effort and be part of it, this is not made to make few people rich but our own culture rich, this is not the effort to build businesses for personal gains but for overall development of every one associated. If Himachalis need identity outside their own sphere they need to unite, it causes pain to every one and distracts future members if smaller groups boast of representation, its same mentality which made India ruled by British or Mughals, do we want to happen that again, do we want that again larger companies whose main idea is to make money and destroy our own culture and environment then just run away after our resources are exhausted?

Recently HP govt. put up a ban on few companies and gave nod for smaller hydro plants to HP people but again these companies mostly from south are reluctant to go away and trying the back door entry. It’s for everyone to decide, those who say they want to do something together they also need to understand the idea of TEAM (Together Everyone Achieves More). Every one says they are trying from their own end whatever small it is, but recently I heard about the pending case in HP High court about state government fighting with NHPC for release of 15% water to our rivers, which NHPC is reluctant to do. My idea is, even state government is unable to fight giants then why here we are talking about making small efforts, small efforts are over, now the time is to unite and make bigger impact, but alas its so tough to make our fellow Himachlais understand the lesson of unity.

Forgive me for the grammar or language as I am not trained journalist or writer, I am trained to be passionate about our rich heritage and that’s the message I am trying to give here!

Avnish Katoch

An IT professional for 17 years, based in the US since the last 12 years. Founded NGO My Himachal and then Himachal Media Pvt. Ltd.. A Himachali forever. Always trying to bring together people whose hearts beat for the state.