Idea of India

On our third session, our class discussed the idea of India, from the readings and what it meant to us. We can generally summarize the key concepts into: Culture, norms, values, knowledge, language and symbols.

We then discussed about why India was unified and the idea of "Indianess". We then dived further into culture and how it should be linked with politics and also about drawing Indians into a shared project of development.

Dr Kankana also linked the idea of India back to our previous session on solidarity and agency, where solidarity was linked with the community and agency was linked with development. She then went on to talk about the caste system and how women were being marginalized before moving on to the Master's Tea with Mr Rajiv Khandelwal.

At the Master's Tea, Rajiv Khandelwal talked about the state of India and about the migrants going overseas to earn a living but were being exploited. It was disheartening to see and hear how they were being treated over here in our homeland and how they had to return home with only disappointment instead of the wealth they sought for their families. Nevertheless, I am glad there are associations such as they Aajeevika Bureau providing support and we can learn more about the efforts of such associations.