This is inspired by the responses I got to the post about roads, which some­how got into a dis­cus­sion about insid­ers and outsiders.

First let me say that I really think that I reserve the right to ‘crib’ on my own space. I think that as far as Ban­ga­lore goes, I have been a great cham­pion of the city and have taken to it like a fish takes to water.

My friends in Mum­bai are amazed that I turned ‘Ban­ga­lorean’ faster than I ever turned a Mum­bai­ite (even after 5 years there, I didn’t really feel like one). So when Shub writes about “her city” and how she can­not take a word against it, I must say that I gave this some thought.

Why can’t we take the facts? Just because it is ‘our’ city, should we be obliv­i­ous to the real­i­ties that exist? Should we as con­cerned cit­i­zens remain mute bystanders and just take any­thing that comes our way? I think with­out peo­ple who protest, raise dhar­nas, fight for their rights as a cit­i­zen, we would be still in the dark ages.

I think if you’ve been fol­low­ing my blog, I’ve been a cham­pion of liv­ing in the city and the oppor­tu­ni­ties that exist here and harped quite a lot on the pos­i­tive side. But I have to call a spade a spade once in a while. It is a known fact that infra­struc­ture is crum­bling and that the city is no longer able to cope with it. I am sure solu­tions will emerge in a few years. But are we to keep totally silent till then? And the sad part is that the gov­ern­ment saw this devel­op­ment com­ing and still has not been able to do much about it. An edi­to­r­ial in The Hindu said that it’s not a prob­lem of money, but of poor governance.

Maybe, things will improve over the years, but we all have our lim­its of patience and I think Ban­ga­lore­ans are being tested to their lim­its already.

I object even more about being called an ‘out­sider’. Not only have I set­tled into my life in this city, I am proud of it and what it offers.

And what is “my city” any­way? I have never lived in one for more than 5 years in my adult life. If I decide that this is the city I want to live in, earn a liv­ing and set­tle down, why should I be called an out­sider and asked to leave? It is but a city in my own coun­try, isn’t it? Why should I then be dis­crim­i­nated against? Just because I was not born here?

I live here, pay my taxes to this gov­ern­ment, what else should I do to qual­ify as an insider? I strongly object to this and I think that only nar­row minded peo­ple can still stick to the ide­ol­ogy that their state is for them alone. What hap­pens to Mum­bai, Delhi, Cal­cutta if they decide to throw out all the so called “outsiders”?

Some truly nar­row minds still exist as dis­played through anony­mous com­ments and it’s rather shame­ful that they exist in today’s times, when what we should be think­ing about is how to progress as a nation and not as indi­vid­u­als stuck in some pre-historic time zone cling­ing to con­cept of “my state, and my city” where every­one else qual­i­fies as “outsiders”.

And what if all the coun­tries filled with Indian immi­grants like the UK and the United States decides to do this one day? We will cry out loud say­ing it’s racism and dis­crim­i­na­tion and yet it is as insid­i­ous in our own coun­try, as is appar­ent by this par­tic­u­larly offen­sive com­ment, “The kan­nadiga anger is near the brim and one day when it would explode all of you would know.” What a cry­ing shame.

I am a huge sup­porter of being a global cit­i­zen. Peo­ple should be able to live and work any­where in their coun­try and the world, with­out being called out­siders and being told to “go back”. And go back where, I ask? I for one wouldn’t know where. I have lived all over the coun­try — in Shil­long, Guwa­hati, Pune, Syd­ney, Mum­bai and now in Ban­ga­lore. So where do I really belong and where do I go “back” to?

Usha writes in this post, about how hurt she was after being called an out­sider after 26 years of liv­ing in the city. “Hap­pened to me when some­one asked me if I was a kan­nadiga or an “outsider“in Ban­ga­lore. The cat­e­gori­sa­tion seemed very clear. It did not mat­ter that I had lived in this city for 26 years, con­sid­ered it my home, spoke kan­nada bet­ter than some for whom it was the mother tongue and above all, loved the city. I own prop­erty and I have vot­ing rights here. And yet, to be called an out­sider in your home?! Now, that hurt, very very deeply. I did not know where I belonged any­more.”

And I totally under­stand how she would feel. Why are some peo­ple still stuck in these parochial worlds?

(Com­ments now closed on this post).