Garhwal, Kumaon and Uttarakhand

The ill-will between the people of Jammu and Kashmir regions of J&K should be an eye opener for the concerned people of Uttarakhand. It shows, how a seemingly unimportant action can be blown up to divide the society for petty political gains.
The main political parties are deeply divided In Uttarakhand, the politicians of Kumaon and Garhwal regions have often played up 'discrimination' meted out to their regions by CMs and influential ministers from the other region.
Main political parties are deeply divided on caste and regional lines, so much so that their candidates, ministries, development schemes, establishment of new institutions, political favours - everything goes according to their region and caste. At macro level, there is effort to 'balance' the aspirations of the two regions by giving them equally poor and empoverished educational institutions and similar other non-progressive ways. The state has not got its new capital, mostly because of this very reason.
It will be naive to say that only the politicians are responsible for the divide. People have been divided by their wrong notions about the 'other' region; but this is natural and this has happened the world over. In earlier times, when kings of one region attacked the other region - and this was quite common - people of those regions turned enemies. Poor means of communication, low levels of education and various social factors led to more animosity and alienation. This happened in Uttarakhand: terrirorial divisions can be found between people this side of a river and those on the other side or this side of the hill range and the other side. Such divisions are perhaps not very threatening when these do not help politicians and others, but divisions between two distinct historical and administrative identities such as Kumaon and Garhwal do help 'vested interests' and have the potential to snowball into big problems like we are currently seeing in J&K.
It is here comes the role of concerend and awakened people of Uttarakhand. They must, through their deeds and words, consciously help in bridging cultural, social and political gaps among the people of Garhwal and Kumaon. NGOs and social groups can strengthen such bonds. If we are too busy and self-centred [and we have every right to be so] to help in such societal bridging, we can at least not do anything that divides Uttarakhand into two regions: this every Uttarakhandi can do, wherever he is, however big he is, however much busy he is.
Amein!

Look at these travelogues on Uttarakhand, and if you have time and inclination, do give your comments.
Almora-Ranikhet in rainy season
Kumaon: big rock, candy mountains

nyo-tish

the executive of uttarayani is furious! they have a reason to be. whenever anybody searches for uttarayani on search engines, especially google, uttarayani blog [this blog] and the uttarayani_delhi website on geocities come up first, they refrain.
so, we are giving profuse links to the uttarayni.org website here. moreover, should you happen to post a comment here, that will be automatically notified to the email of the president of uttarayani.

congrats, new exec!

Our felicitations to the new executive members. Hope, you rejuvenate the organisation.

look at this page!

Look at the lively page on Uttarakhand Worldwide [earlier Uttaranchal Worldwide] site. You will be amazed at the level of discussion going on in Uttakahndis' niche sites and fora. Hope you like it.

such a sleep!

we tend to doze off, but there are times, when we hibernate. It is one such time, it seems.

happy new year

we wish our members and other friends a very happy new year.