Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat

Assimilating The Heritage Of Cultural Diversity

Carrying forward the idea of Unity in Diversity — a country which varies vastly in terms of religions, castes and languages — Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced ‘Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat’ scheme on 31 October, 2015, the occasion of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s birthday which is also commemorated as the day of National Unity. The idea aims to make every State familiar with the culture of different States in the country and improve mutual relations between them in order to nurture positive thinking.

Nurturing positive thinking

SardarVallabhhai Patel had said the ‘the metric of a country’s overall progress develops from its moral progress’. For the moral progress of the country, it is necessary such seeds are sown (in the minds of) in children so that they develop a positive attitude and thinking towards different states in order to understand and respect their cultures. With this objective in mind, under the Union HRD Ministry, as part of ‘Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat’, more than 1,000 cultural, craft, and sporting events were conducted in as many as 227 universities and 450 schools, in which more than 2 lakh students and parents were familiarised with different cultures of India. Other than this, under the HRD Ministry’s ‘Bhasha Sangam’ scheme, students from classes 1 till 12 were taught how to speak sentences in regional languages such as Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Gujarati, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Odiya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santhalese, Sindhi and Dongari, other than Hindi and English.

Helping youth form their own views

Under ‘Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat’, efforts are being made so that the youth of the country increasingly experience cultures, traditions, and customs of the people of other States and try to understand them better. The Tourism Ministry’s ‘Bharat Parv and Paryatan Parv’ is among such efforts that have provided opportunities to understand and experience traditions of different States and the talents there. The Interstate Youth Exchange Programme organized by the Department of Youth Affairs enabled youth to visit their partner State, understand it and make friends there. Other than this, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has himself appealed to the people to travel to at least 15 domestic locations in the coming three years.

Mutual cultural understanding through collaboration

At a time when every individual is curious to explore and understand the world, efforts are being made under ‘Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat’ to familiarise them with their country. Under this scheme, literary, cultural, sporting and tourism events were organized in all States and Union Territories in order to connect them and encourage a better understanding of each other. By connecting these States, their customs and cultures are also being promoted. Under this programme, the following States have been connected with each other — Jammu and Kashmir to Tamil Nadu, Punjab to Andhra Pradesh, Himachal to Kerala, Uttarakhand to Karnataka, Haryana to Telangana, Rajasthan to Assam, Gujarat to Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra to Odisha, Goa to Jharkhand, Delhi to Sikkim, Madhya Pradesh to Manipur and Nagaland, Uttar Pradesh to Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya, Bihar to Tripura and Mizoram, Chandigarh to Dadar and Nagar Haveli, Puducherry to Daman & Diu, and Lakshadweep to Andaman & Nicobar.

Celebrating festivals together

Today people from all States move to different States for either studies or in search of livelihood. This is the reason people like to celebrate festivals and customs of other States too. Be it West Bengal’s Durga Puja or Bihar’s Chatth Puja, both can be seen celebrated in New Delhi. Similarly, Maharashtra’s Ganesh Puja has reached the towns of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Prime Minister Narendra Modi through ‘Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat’ scheme has tried to make this effort more impressive. Under this initiative in the past few years, different Ministries of the Union Government organized a plethora of activities and events and the results of the same can now be seen. The Ministry of Culture organized national cultural mega festivals across Gujarat, Karnataka, Delhi and other locations across the country. This included arranging classical and popular music events, dance performances, theatre and drama in order to connect different States. Similarly, in Kumbh Mela, the cultural Kumbh (Prayagraj) organized by Sanskriti Mahotsav, youths from different States demonstrated their talents in their own unique ways. Other than this, through cultural, craft and art events such as Kabir Festival (Mahanagar), Narmada Natya Mahotsav (Jabalpur), Swacchta ki Jyoti (Varanasi), Atulya Bharat (Patna), Lokotsava (Motihari), India’s colours of Unity in Diversity were amply demonstrated.

The excitement in the States

There is a lot of excitement in the States regarding the ‘Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat’ scheme. Haryana and Telangana named their partnership as ‘Haryangana’ by sharing each other’s literature and cultural heritage. The performance artists of Telangana learned ‘Dhumar’ dance and later performed it. This cultural assimilation was extremely lauded by the audience. The Tamil Nadu Tourism Corporation provided a discount of 15 percent to tourists from Jammu & Kashmir and a discount of 20 percent was provided for them in hotels of Tamil Nadu Development Corporation hotels. (PIB Feature)