Is the North-South divide growing in India?

This was a topic of discussion at an event on my campus yesterday. The panel invited to speak on this topic consisted of very high profile persons – Devaki Jain, Javed Akhtar, Ramchandra Guha, Chandan Mitra, and moderated by Vir Sanghvi no less. All of them are extremely vocal and opinionated people, and over the years most of us have had a lot of exposure to these panelists and their views on several topics of national interest.

But the starting premise itself was puzzling to me. Is there such a thing as a divide? Sure, there are many, many discrepancies, divergences, disparities in India, but is this North v/s the South the issue? Does it merit such discussion? When there are other, more burning issues in the country. And that too, with on this scale, with such high profile people? I’m not so sure… And I suspect the panelists too felt the same way. As a result the discussion was at best interesting, but not exciting or heated in any way.

Some amusing questions were asked by Infosys staff:

1. In times of war is North better and in times of peace is South better? What did the person even mean by that question???
2. Should we have a single language to bridge the gap? This was met with a very vocal response from Javed saab who called it a fascist sentiment, and that if unity meant submission to one rule, then it is not the India that we know and love. Amen to that.

I am half gujarati and half kannadiga, so that makes me half north-indian (ok, ok, west Indian) and half south-indian. I’ve lived in both regions, I speak both languages quite well. And I thrive in this ‘split personality’, using it to my advantage quite often! My view is that people who either lack exposure or who are unwilling to broaden their world view are the ones who dwell on the divide rather than celebrate the diversity.