We, the post-independence generation has taken a lot of heritage and struggles for granted and thus did not appreciate the struggle it took to keep the social fabric of our diversity intact in the face of attacks aimed at making us a homogenous pack of lab rats answering to the common call of one religion, one ideology, one voice…and the challenges we face today are more or less, the result of our apathy to the socio cultural heritage.
Though Indian society and culture are resilient enough to absorb the shocks of these challenges, we can’t take the pluralism of Indian society for granted. The world history proves this amply. We have to guard against those who try to replace multi-culturalism with uni-culturalism, acceptance and assimilation with arrogance and aggression and vibrancy with ritualistic, monolithic society. It was decided to counter the negativity and intolerance (both at mental as well as physical level) through the icons which are part of social ethos, people can easily relate with.
Purvanchal, though has a glorious cultural, philosophical and religious history, it has been afflicted with some sort of self-pity syndrome. The negativity has resulted due to continuous neglect of the area at various level of governance and a feudal society which has yet to come to terms with democratic and decentralized form of governance. There is a need to invoke culture renaissance so that people can realize their connection with the glorious history and take pride in belonging to the tradition of great Buddha, Kabir, Mahaveer, Tulsi and such icons. Following that, the society can submerge their caste and community in the togetherness and multicultural ethos can be the defining feature of vibrant society. Then, societal synergy than can be used to give development a quantum leap by having a long term strategy which takes into account the capabilities, aspiration, diversity and rejecting the negativities in form of caste and communal violence, gender related violence and dominance by politicians and beaurocracy as feudal lords. Generating this pride is a challenge and was the main objective behind organizing the yatra “Buddha Se Kabir Tak” from Kushinagar to Maghar (route-start and destination).