By M. Zajam TwoCircles.net,

“United We Stand, Divided We fall”, popular phrase used by our leaders during freedom struggle to counter British “Divide and Rule” policy. It was effective slogan which united people in freedom movement, irrespective of religion, cast and language differences.

After Independence, this slogan lost its importance.
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As Indian we are proud of our diversity. India, which is home to multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multi-religious society. India is the most religiously diverse country in the world, with significant Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Bahai population. By some counts there are over 200 languages in India, according to Census of India of 2001, 29 languages are spoken by more than a million native speakers. The Indian currency is printed in 15 languages. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru rightly described Indian unity as “Unity in Diversity”.

India is charging ahead to join the league of powerful and developed countries. Indian flag is being carried by companies like Tata, Birla, Mittal, Videocon, Infosys, TCS, Wipro etc. Indian companies and industrialist are now regularly featured on Forbes list of biggest and wealthiest. Western world is watching their march to go global and capture new geographical markets carefully. India rapid growth is also cause for concern for few.

Boston Consulting Group (BCG) report is apprehensive about shift of axis of corporate power to countries like Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC). It identified 100 new global challengers from these nations, which included 21 Indian firms, including Bharat Forge, Hindalco, Videocon and Tata Steel.

India is doing extremely well in various sectors and has become major player.

India prominence in various field has also produced new competitors. India is competing with USA, Russia and China in Space technology. Rise of IT and BPO industry has been cause of concern for developed western world. India's major exports are engineering goods, petroleum products, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, gems and jewellery, textiles and garments, agricultural products, iron ore and other minerals. India is facing tough competition with countries that want to grab a slice of this pie.

Billions of dollars are at stake when these countries are competing for new contracts; for some small countries it may be a major portion of their budget. Companies are known to use all the tricks in books to stay ahead of competitors. In this world of cut-throat competition, rivals companies also resort to industrial espionage and sabotage to gain upper hand.

India is surrounded by hostile neighbours but now we have to face rivals in form of various companies and countries spread all over the world. India is watchful about the neighbours due its experiences in the past but what about the other rivals countries?

In this globalised world, any disturbance in our cities can give added advantage to rival sitting across globe. Any violent incident in port cities of India can cause huge delay and great loss to Indian companies. It can also jeopardise future contract for these companies.

We also have various extremists, militants, fundamentalist groups inside and outside country with only motto to create disturbance. There are few political groups ever willing to use British policy of “Divide and Rule” to come to or hold on to power. These groups are dividing country on religious, caste, regional lines so that they can have easy ride to power without bothering about devising plans for country and state betterment or talking about real common man issues. Knowing or unknowingly these groups are hampering India’s growth. Indians are mature enough to indentify obstacles and remove them from the path of development.

Our diversity, which is our strength, should remain our strength. It should not become tool for some rival countries to damage India, Indians and its economy. Now we have to more than ever need to be alert to save our unity, if we want to flourish.