A Country Of Contrasts

An 80-year-old political leader and some others are killed in Orissa by a group of suspected Maoist insurgents. Political parties blame the murders on a religious community. Religious violence breaks out, and many people die. Others are forcefully converted and humiliated. The state government looks the other way, for the most part.

In a different state, a young political leader forms his own party. In his greed for votes, he incites violence against people of other communities, in the name of protecting what he calls sons-of-the-soil. Many people (including sons-of-the-soil) are hurt, a few die, and there is fear and tension all around. This government looks the other way too.

Terrorists cross the border from other countries, and find the general public dissatisfied with a lot of things, and easy to divide on religious or other grounds. There are 'terrorist' attacks all over the country.

News channels monger fear and panic, using everything from ghosts under trees, to particle accelerators, to rumors about terrorist attacks, to the ineffectiveness of the government's security measures in preventing said terrorist attacks, to the fall of the stock market. They try to divide people along lines of 'people vs the government', 'people vs foreign investors', and even 'people vs science'.

In the middle of all this, a group of scientists of different castes, from different states, and following different religions, manages to launch a mission to the moon.

We seem to be a country of contrasts. Easily divided, easily provoked, easily offended, easily scared. And yet, when some of us put our minds to it, we can accomplish so much. Even the moon doesn't seem so far.

To think of what we could accomplish if everyone stopped trying to divide us, and worked on unity instead...