The problem of the
minorities is one of the most vexed questions confronting India today. A great
deal of administrative machinery has already been geared to the tackling of
this issue and a whole spate of letters and articles, well-intentioned and
otherwise, have appeared in the media, without, however, any neat, concrete
solution having been found. But have we looked at the problem from all possible
angles. A glimpse at what is happening in other countries with minority
problems would indicate that there is one line of action which has been almost
totally neglected in India – that of self-help.
It is positively
heartening to see what this has done for minorities elsewhere in the world. Let
us never forget that India does not stand alone in having such a problem. In
the US, for example, the Asians settled there account for 2 per cent of the
total population, but their success rate goes far and beyond their population
ratio. It is true that the US, has
provided them with opportunities which are available in very few other
countries in the world, but it would be far from correct to say that it had
solved the minorities’ problems for them. Without the sustained personal
efforts of the Asians themselves, success stories would have been few and far
between. It is important to understand that it was this resolution and tenacity
of purpose which brought them to the
fore and not the
‘demand-and-protest’ formula so beloved of the minorities in India particularly
the Muslims. America’s Asian minority should serve a model for the minorities
of India. Their problems have equaled
those of the Indian minorities in severity, but they have had the sense to open
their eyes to the advantages all around them and to exploit them to the
full. It is unfortunate that there are
many people in this world who cannot or will not recognize an opportunity when
it comes their way. As an English poet has observed :
Two men looked out from prison bars,
One saw the mud and the other saw stars.
If a class or
community which considers itself disadvantaged or deprived goes through life
seeing only the mud and never the stars, there is little hope of its making
progress, with or without external encouragement. Considering that India’s
minorities seem to have spent a very long time concentrating their attention on
the mud and doing very little reaching for the stars, they would do well to
reflect that America’s Asian minorities did not start off in any better a
situation than the find themselves in today, and certainly had no ready-made
sinecures ready and waiting for them.
They had to start from scratch in an alien environment, cut off from
their roots and traditions. They had to ignore disadvantages, create their own
advantages and then learn to exploit them. India’s minorities, in sharp
contrast to this, are living in their own land, in their own homes, with the
support of centuries of tradition and culture behind them. Then what exactly are
they waiting for?
The majority of
the emigrants from Asian countries who have settled in America – the Asian
Americans – belonged originally to China, Korea, Indo-China, etc., and when
they first came to America, they could hardly converse in English at all, but,
today, they are known as ‘super students’ in the best of America’s English
Schools. Although they make up only 2 per cent of the population, they have
secured 20 percent of the places in American institutes of higher learning.
This state of affairs
has given Americans much food for thought, and detailed surveys have been
carried out to pinpoint the contributing factors. The results of this research
have appeared in various publications such as Time magazine (31 August, 1987),
Span (December 1987), Reader’s Digest (August 1987) and The Hindustan Times
(New Delhi, 30 August, 1987).
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