Human beings have the compelling need to belong and
identify themselves with a group. What is surprising is that even the well-educated,
well-traveled , worldly aware and wise fall prey to the biases of their early upbringing
little too easily. I recently read a FB post that was prompted by the Andhra-Telangana
split and the possibility that Hyderabad airport may not get named “N.T.R.
Airport”. The writer identified himself as a Telugu, seemed to dislike being
banded together with south Indians or Tamils and felt comfort in the fact that
NTR upped the game for Telugus throughout his career and life. This prompted me
to think about belongingness, the benefits of it being a larger group and our
own limitations that cause us to default to a smaller group most of time. Through a subtle shift in our thinking, I bet
we can have more success in being more inclusive.
Let me try to explain with an analogy that is not
perfect, but may help drive home the point. Talking of home, what exactly is ‘home’
in one’s mind? It could be the house one lives in, the neighborhood where they
spend most of the time, the city, the state, the country or even the planet or
our galaxy. It all depends on how we view ‘home’ under a specific context. When
I pick up my daughter from school some 5 miles away and reach our front
driveway, I feel I’ve reached home; when I’m driving back from southern California,
entering the outskirts of San Jose or even Gilroy feels ‘home’; when I was on
my 48 state road trip, entering California from Nevada felt ‘home’, even though
I still had a day’s driving to do; flying back from an international trip,
entering the US airspace feels ‘home’. Someday in the near future, seeing Earth
from above and entering its atmosphere would feel ‘home’ when completing an
interstellar travel. If home could be so many things depending upon our mindset
and thinking, why can’t we strive to be more inclusive when it comes to human
beings and belongingness?
Many problems in the world will dissipate if we are able
to do that. Before brushing this thought aside as impractical, I urge you
explore a way to feel pride in our
nation or language or religion or caste or ethnicity or gender without
excluding those who don’t belong in that group.
Imagine!
