Dear India, No One Should be Made to Feel Like They Don’t Belong

India is a sum of its different, yet equal parts.

Write your Letter to India this Republic Day.

(Photo: Kamran Akhter/The Quint)

Dear India,

I hear that you are a little sick these days. Is everything okay? India, I feel, is a sum of its parts. That is why to address my nation, I’m using the analogy of the body.

India, I feel your illness may be an outcome of the fact that some parts of your body are now starting to function as if they were more important than the rest.

I once believed that there was a body (India) where all the organs used to give life to each other, considered each other as essential for survival. Now those parts have to prove that they are in fact, a part of the same body! What kind of a DNA test is this?

If India were indeed a body, then I am a ‘cell’ as equal as the next. If there was in-fighting between the eyes, the tongue, the ears, it would make the whole body weaker and all would have to bear the brunt of it equally.

Dear India, brotherhood between different people flows through your veins like blood. Why do we now have to prove that this blood is pure? India is one whole because of its different parts – and all have their duty to perform. Only then will India be a well-oiled machinery. It must fight the illness (the discriminatory Citizenship Act). This is India, it will not be broken like this. I wish for your speedy recovery and pray for your longevity.

Raavan Azad
Jodhpur, Rajasthan