Understanding Diversity PDF

UNIT - I Diversity Div ity Div e...

UNIT - I Diversity Div ity Div e i t y r Diversityr s ers v e s ity ers D i Div ity Rationalised 2023-24 Unit_I Ch 1.indd 1 14-11-2022 03:53:48 PM  National Anthem of India Jana-gana-mana-adhinayaka jaya he Bharata-bhagya-vidhata. Punjaba-Sindhu-Gujarata-Maratha Dravida-Utkala-Banga Vindhya-Himachala-Yamuna-Ganga uchchala-jaladhi-taranga. Tava shubha name jage, tava shubha asisa mage, gahe tava jaya-gatha. Jana-gana-mangala-dayaka jaya he Bharata-bhagya-vidhata. Jaya he, jaya he, jaya he, jaya jaya jaya jaya he! Translation of the National Anthem Thou art the ruler of the minds of all people, dispenser of India’s destiny. Thy name rouses the hearts of the Punjab, Sindh, Gujarat and Maratha, of the Dravida and Odisha and Bengal. It echoes in the hills of the Vindhyas and Himalayas, mingles in the music of Yamuna and Ganga and is chanted by the waves of the Indian Sea. They pray for thy blessings and sing thy praise. The saving of all people waits in thy hand, thou dispenser of India’s destiny. Victory, Victory, Victory to thee! Note: “Jana Gana Mana” was translated by Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore from Bengali to English in February 1919 at Madanapalle in the District of Chittoor. (Source: www.btcollege.org) Rationalised 2023-24 Unit_I Ch 1.indd 2 14-11-2022 03:53:49 PM  Chapter 1 Look around you in the classroom: do you see Understanding anyone who looks exactly like you do? In this chapter you will learn that people are different from Diversity each other in many ways. Not only do they look different but they might also belong to different regional, cultural or religious backgrounds. These differences enrich our lives in many ways and also make them more fun! All these different people, who come from all kinds of backgrounds, and belong to all kinds of religions and cultures help to make India so interesting and so diverse. What does diversity add to our lives? How did India become like this? Are all kinds of difference a part of diversity? Can diversity also be a part of unity? Read this chapter to find some answers. T hree children around your age have drawn the figures above. Use the empty box to draw your human figure. Is your drawing similar to any of the others? The chances are that your drawing is quite different from the other three, which you can see are quite different from each other. This is because each one of us has a unique drawing style. We not only don’t look exactly like each other but also differ in terms of the language we speak, our cultural backgrounds, the religious rituals we observe and, of course the way we draw! Rationalised 2023-24 Unit_I Ch 1.indd 3 14-11-2022 03:53:51 PM  4 / Social and Political Life the evening’s headlines in a mixture of Fill out the following information Hindi and English words. This time, I about yourself stopped by the pavement and asked for When I go out I like wearing the Hindi paper. His mouth fell open. _____________________________________ “You mean you know Hindi?” he At home I speak in asked. _____________________________________ “Of course,” I said as I paid for the My favourite sport is paper. _____________________________________ “Why? What did you think?” I like reading books about He paused. “But you look so…so _____________________________________ angrez,” he said. “You mean you can even read Hindi?” Now ask your teacher to help you “Of course I can,” I said, this time a check, how many of you have similar little impatiently. “I can speak, read answers. Is there anyone whose list and write Hindi. Hindi is one of the matches yours exactly? Probably not. subjects I study in school.” But many of you may have similar answers. How many like reading the same kind of books? How many different languages are spoken by the students in your class? By now you must have recognised the many ways in which you are quite like some of your classmates and other ways in which you are different from them. Making friends Do you think it would be easy for you to make friends with someone who was very different from you? Read the “Subjects?” he asked. How could I following story and think about this. explain what a subject was to someone I had meant it as a joke. A joke made who had never been to school? “Well, it up for a small ragged boy who sold is something…” I began, but the lights newspapers at the Janpat crossing at changed, and the honking behind the busy intersection. Every time I cycled me grew a hundredfold and I let myself past he would run after me, holding out be pushed along with the rest of the the English paper and screaming out traffic. Rationalised 2023-24 Unit_I Ch 1.indd 4 14-11-2022 03:53:53 PM  Understanding Diversity /5 The next day he was there again, The next day, he did not have his smiling at me and holding out a Hindi usual smile for me. “There is trouble paper. “Bhaiyya,” he said, “aap ka in Meerut,” he said. “Many people are akhbaar. Ab Bathaaiye yeh subject kya being killed there in the riots.” I looked cheez hai?” the English word sounded at the headlines. Communal Riots, it strange on his tongue. It sounded blazed. “But Samir…” I began. “I’m a like its other meaning in English – to Muslim Samir,” he said in answer. “And all my people are in Meerut.” be ruled by someone else. His eyes filled with tears and when “Oh, it’s just something to study,” I I touched his shoulder, he would not said. And then because the red light had look up. come on, I asked him, “Have you ever He was not at the crossing the day been to school?” “Never,” he answered. after. Neither the day after nor ever And he added proudly, “I began working again. And no newspaper, in English or when I was so high.” He measured Hindi, can tell me where my Samir Do himself against my cycle-seat. “First my has gone. mother used to come with me but I can (The Lights Changed by Poile Sengupta) do it all alone.” “Where is your mother now?” I asked, Name three ways in which Samir but then the lights changed and I was Ek and Samir Do were different? off. I heard him yell from somewhere Did these differences prevent behind me, “She’s in Meerut with…” them from becoming friends? The rest was drowned out. “My name is Samir,” he said the While Samir Ek is more familiar next day. And very shyly he asked, with English, Samir Do speaks Hindi. “What’s yours?” It was incredible. My Although they both are more at bicycle wobbled. “My name is Samir home in different languages they still too,” I said. “What?” His eyes lit up. communicated with each other. They “Yes,” I grinned at him. “It’s another made the effort to do so because this name for Hanuman’s father, you was what was important to them. know.” “So now you are Samir Ek and Samir Ek and Samir Do also I’m Samir Do,” he said triumphantly. come from different religious and “Something like that,” I answered and cultural backgrounds. While Samir then I held out my hand. “Haath milao, Ek is a Hindu, Samir Do is a Muslim. Samir Do!” His hand nestled in mine Different religious and cultural like a little bird. I could still feel its backgrounds such as these are an warmth as I cycled away. aspect of diversity. Rationalised 2023-24 Unit_I Ch 1.indd 5 14-11-2022 03:53:54 PM  6 / Social and Political Life Here, we’re talking not of difference Make a list of the festivals that but of inequality. Inequality comes might have been celebrated by the about when a person does not have the two boys. resources and opportunitites that are Samir Ek: available to other persons. Samir Do: The caste system is another Can you think of a situation in example of inequality. According to which you made friends with this, society was divided into different someone who was very different groups depending upon the work that from you? Write a story that people did and they were supposed describes this. to remain in those groups. So if your parents were potters you could only In addition to their become a potter, nothing else. This diverse religious and system was considered irreversible. cultural backgrounds, And because you were not supposed there are other ways to change your profession, it was not in which Samir Ek considered necessary for you to know and Samir Do are anything more than what you needed different from each in your profession. This created a other. For example, situation of inequality. You will read while Samir Ek goes to more about this and other inequalities school, Samir Do sells in the following chapters. newspapers. What does diversity add to our Discuss lives? Why do you think Samir Do did Just like Samir Ek and Samir Do not attend school? Do you think became friends, you might have friends it would have been easy for him to who are very different from you. You attend school if he wanted to? In have probably eaten different kinds your opinion is it a fair situation of food in their homes, celebrated that some children get to go to different festivals with them, tried out school and others don’t? the clothes they wear, and learnt some of their languages as well. Samir Do did not have the opportunity to attend school. Perhaps Make a list of the food that you you’ve noticed that there are several have eaten from different parts of people in the area where you live who India. are poor and who don’t have enough to Make a list of the languages besides eat or wear and sometimes not even a your mother tongue that you can place to live. This difference is not the speak at least one or two words of. same as the one we have seen earlier. Rationalised 2023-24 Unit_I Ch 1.indd 6 14-11-2022 03:53:54 PM  Understanding Diversity /7 far were forced to live in a place where all people wore the same two colours red and white, ate the same food (maybe potatoes!), took care of the same two animals, for example, the deer and the cat, and to entertain themselves played snakes and ladders. What kind of stories do you think they would write? You probably like reading and Imagine that you are a writer or hearing stories and adventures about an artist who lives in the place different animals, people and even described above. Either write a ghosts. Perhaps you even enjoy making story or draw a picture of your up stories yourself ! Many young people life here. feel happy when they read a good story Do you think you would enjoy because it gives them lots of ideas to living in a place like this? List five make up more stories. People who write different things that you would stories get their ideas from all sorts of miss the most if you lived here. different places – from books, and real life and from their imagination. DIVERSITY IN INDIA Some may have lived in forests close India is a country of many diversities. to animals and chosen to write of their We speak different languages, have fights and friendships. Others read various types of food, celebrate real accounts of kings and queens and different festivals, practise different wrote stories about love and honour. religions. But actually, if you think Some dipped into their own childhood about it, we do many things that are similar except that we do them in memories of school and friends and different ways. wrote stories of adventure. Imagine How do we explain Diversity? if all the A little more than two hundred years storytellers ago or long before the train, aeroplane, and writers bus or car became a part of our lives, that you people travelled from one part of the have heard world to another, in ships, on horses, and read so on camels or on foot. Rationalised 2023-24 Unit_I Ch 1.indd 7 14-11-2022 03:53:54 PM  8 / Social and Political Life List at least three different ways in which people in India do the following. One of the possible answers has been provided for you already. Different ways in Through singing a which people pray hymn Different ways in Through signing a which people get register in the court married Different ways in In Manipur women which people dress wear a phanek Different ways in In Jharkhand many which people greet adivasis say “johar” each other to greet each other Different ways in By making Biriyani which people cook with meat or rice vegetables Often, they went in search of new music, religions became a mix of the lands, or new places to settle in, or old and the new, and out of this inter- for people to trade with. And because mixing of cultures, came something it took so long to travel, once they got new and different. to a place, people stayed there, often The history of many places shows for a long time. Many others left their us how many different cultural homes because there were famines influences have helped to shape life and drought and they could not get and culture there. Thus regions enough to eat. Some went in search of became very diverse because of their work while others left because there unique histories. was a war. Similarly diversity also comes Sometimes, as they began to make about when people adapt their lives to their homes in new places, people the geographical area in which they began to change a little and at other live. For example living near the sea times they managed to do things in is quite different from living in a the old ways. So their languages, food, mountainous area. Rationalised 2023-24 Unit_I Ch 1.indd 8 14-11-2022 03:53:55 PM  Understanding Diversity /9 Not only do people have different clothing and eating habits, but even the Ladakh is a desert in the mountains in the east of Jammu kinds of work they do are different. In and Kashmir. Very little agriculture cities it is often easy to forget how closely is possible here since this region people’s lives are tied to their physical does not receive any rain and is surroundings. This is because in the city covered in snow for a large part of people seldom grow their own vegetables the year. There are very few trees and grain. Instead they depend on the that can grow in the region. For market to buy all the food and other goods drinking water, people depend that they need. on the melting snow during the Let us try to understand what we summer months. mean when we say that historical and People here keep sheep and geographical factors influence the diversity goats. The goats in this region of a region. We can do this by reading about are special because they produce life in two different parts of the country, pashmina wool. This wool is prized Kerala and Ladakh. and pashmina shawls cost a lot of money. The people in Ladakh Look at the map of India in an Atlas and carefully collect the wool of the locate Kerala and Ladakh. Can you goats and sell this to traders from list three ways in which the different Kashmir. Pashmina shawls are geographical location of these two chiefly woven in Kashmir. regions would influence the following? 1. The food people eat: The people eat meat and milk 2. The clothes they wear: products like cheese and butter. 3. The work they do: Each family owns some goats, cows and dzos (yak-cows). Being a desert did not mean that Ladakh did not attract its share of traders. It was considered a good trade route as it had many passes through which caravans travelled to what is today called Tibet. These caravans carried textiles and spices, raw silk and The dry barren landscape of the mountainous carpets. desert of Ladakh. Rationalised 2023-24 Unit_I Ch 1.indd 9 14-11-2022 03:53:55 PM  10 / Social and Political Life Buddhism reached Tibet via Ladakh. Ladakh is also called Little Tibet. Islam was introduced in this region more than four hundred years ago and there is a significant Muslim population here. Ladakh has a very rich oral tradition of songs and poems. Local versions of the Tibetan national epic the Kesar Saga are performed and sung by both Muslims and Buddhists. Woman weaving a pashmina shawl Kerala is a state in the 2000 years ago and he is credited with south-west corner of India. bringing Christianity to India. It is surrounded by the sea Many Arab traders also came and settled on one side and hills on the down here. Ibn Battuta, who travelled other. A number of spices here a little less than seven hundred like pepper, cloves and years ago, wrote a travelogue in which he cardamoms are grown on the describes the lives of Muslims and says hills. It is spices that made this region that they were a highly respected community. The Portuguese discovered the sea route to India from Europe when Vasco da Gama landed with his ship here. Because of all these various historical influences, people in Kerala practise different religions such as Judaism, Islam, Chris- tianity, Hinduism and Buddhism. The fishing nets used here look exactly like the Chinese fishing Chinese Fishing Nets nets and are called cheena-vala. Even the utensil used for frying is an attractive place for traders. Jewish called the cheenachatti, and it is believed and Arab traders were the first to come that the word cheen could have come here. The Apostle of Christ, St. Thomas from China. The fertile land and climate is believed to have come here nearly are suited to growing rice and a majority of people here eat rice, fish and vegetables. Rationalised 2023-24 Unit_I Ch 1.indd 10 14-11-2022 03:53:57 PM  Understanding Diversity / 11 While Kerala and Ladakh are quite because they were so different, and different in terms of their geographical then continue to rule them. But the features, the history of both regions people showed how they could be has seen similar cultural influences. different and yet be united in their Both regions were influenced by battle against the British. Chinese and Arab traders. It was the geography of Kerala which allowed for Don’t forget the days of blood, O friend the cultivation of spices and the special In the midst of your happiness remember geographical location of Ladakh and its to shed a tear for us wool that drew traders to these regions. Thus history and geography are often The hunter has torn away every single flower tied in the cultural life of a region. Do plant a flower in the desert garden The influence of diverse cultures dear friend is not merely a thing of the past. Our Having fallen to bullets we slept in present lives are all about moving Jallianwala Bagh from place to place for work and with each move our cultural traditions and Do light a lamp on this lonely grave O friend way of life slowly become part of the new place we are in. Similarly in our The blood of Hindus and Muslims flows own neighbourhoods we live close together today to people from several communities. Do soak your robe in this river of blood Our daily lives are about the ways dear friend in which we do things together and Some rot in jails while others lie in their hear stories about each other’s lives, graves customs and traditions. Do shed a few tears for them O friend. UNITY IN DIVERSITY Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) India’s diversity has always been recognised as a source of its strength. This song was sung after the When the British ruled India, women Jallianwala Bagh massacre in and men from different cultural, Amritsar in which a British general religious and regional backgrounds opened fire on a large group of came together to oppose them. India’s unarmed, peaceful people killing freedom movement had thousands of many and wounding even more. people of different backgrounds in it. Men and women, Hindus, Sikhs and They worked together to decide joint Muslims, rich and poor had gathered actions, they went to jail together, and to protest against the British. This they found different ways to oppose song was composed and sung to the British. Interestingly the British honour the memory of those brave thought they could divide Indians people. Rationalised 2023-24 Unit_I Ch 1.indd 11 14-11-2022 03:53:57 PM  12 / Social and Political Life In his book The Discovery of India Jawaharlal Nehru says that Indian unity is not something imposed from the outside but rather, “It was something deeper and within its fold, the widest tolerance of belief and custom was practised and every variety acknowledged and even encouraged.” Pt. Nehru delivering an Independence Day speech It was Nehru, who Songs and symbols that emerged coined the phrase, “unity in diversity” during the freedom struggle serve as to describe the country. a constant reminder of our country’s India’s national anthem, rich tradition of respect for diversity. composed by Rabindranath Do you know the story of the Indian Tagore, is another expression flag? It was used as a symbol of of the unity of India. In protest against the British by people what way does the national everywhere. anthem describe this unity? QUESTIONS 1. Draw up a list of the different festivals celebrated in your locality. Which of these celebrations are shared by members of different regional and religious communities? 2. What do you think living in India with its rich heritage of diversity adds to your life? 3. Do you think the term “unity in diversity” is an appropriate term to describe India? What do you think Nehru is trying to say about Indian unity in the sentence quoted above from his book The Discovery of India? 4. Underline the line in the poem sung after the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, which according to you, reflects India’s essential unity. 5. Choose another region in India and do a similar study of the historical and geographical factors that influence the diversity found there. Are these historical and geographical factors connected to each other? How? 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