While flipping through the boring TV channels last Saturday, I stumbled upon DD Bharati, perhaps one of the least-visited channels on the cable. It was a short interval between two programs and a gathering of some well known faces were singing a compilation, “Bharat Anokha Raag Hai”, reminiscent of the once so popular “Mile Sur Mera Tumhara”. The latter had stormed the TV in the late 80’s and early 90’s before the advent of the satellite TV in India and I still remember people on streets peeping into the showrooms of TV dealers while this song was on, just as they do for a watching cricket match in India.

While I can’t say how much that song achieved in evoking a sense of national integration – what we have witnessed in India since then suggests otherwise – it was undoubtedly one of the best attempts on TV to disseminate unity and concord, so essential for a nation so diverse. Whenever that song played on TV, it used to rouse those very feelings in me, making me feel so proud to be born in this vast and yet so culturally well-bound land. Where we have all these years failed in is promoting the equality and universal culture, religion and way of life, Mile sur… did that very well. And while watching Bharat Anokha… on that day and a few more times since then, I could rouse the same emotions in me, the same sense of unity within diversity that makes India such a great place to live in.

Politicians in every state, religion and creed in India have used divisive agenda and policies to secure their vote banks and in turn have left India scattered and shattered. Every election in India has been contested by promoting the fear of one doctrine over the other, how it would hurt one belief if the other gets dominant, and so on. Very few nations on earth can boast of such mean, cheap and fear-arousing politicians as India. While we await some divine entity to bond this nation into one and drown these discordant principles into the Indian Ocean, these patriotic compilations satiate the want to an extent. I am now thankful that I stopped over this channel and came across Bharat Anokha… which not only quenched my thirst for some pride and fidelity for my Motherland, but also was a refreshing change from the artificial reality shows, TV Soaps and the mania for breaking news.