Why can’t world be a melting pot?

Just the other day, a sikh boy was beaten up and his long hair was cut off by a bunch of Scottish thugs. Punjabis in America are still mistaken as Arabs and looked upon suspiciously. Lower class Dalit women are paraded naked by upper class villagers at the slightest excuse in some Indian villages. Some Indian states previously imposed legislations stating only natives will get employment there. Some of my friends routinely taunt me that south Indians (like me) are not patriotic enough, because most of the famous freedom fighters (event dated 6 decades) are from north. When I grew up I used to hear this term ‘melting pot’ and wondered what's cooking, sorry for the pun. Thankfully people have long forgotten the term.

Why don’t cultures reconcile, let alone blend, even after decades? May be it is because of basic human psyche to be comfortable only with what looks like us, what we recognize. We trust things that we know and vice versa. Familiarity does not breed contempt; on the contrary, it inspires trust. To trust them/those is to gratify ourselves, in some way.

That is why advertising works. We hesitate to buy anything not advertised even if it’s cheaper (or especially if it’s cheaper- what will my friends think of me if they see this toothpaste?). It is another matter we never admit that we bought anything because of ads; At best we may admit that we bought something because other ads suck.

Now that we know that we can’t blend or possibly even reconcile fully, can we at least coexist peacefully? Fortunately, we have done it so successfully that we almost forgotten how significant it means. Because, the reason Pakistan lost its eastern part (now Bangladesh) was not because India fought for its independence, but because, the urdu speaking Pakistanis considered the Bengali speaking Bangladeshis culturally inferior and treated them as such. In India, Nehru sought to impose what he considered the superior language (hindi) on all states and had to drop the plan owing to stiff resistance. If he had succeeded, who knows what might have happened.