The Government of India created the Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat scheme to foster unity among the people of India’s states/union territories. Pairs of states and UTs are formed to exchange cultural programs for a year. New teams are created for the following year. On the 140th anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s birth, India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, unveiled the ‘Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat Scheme’ on October 31, 2015. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was India’s first Deputy Prime Minister and the country’s first Home Minister after independence. His contribution to India’s national unity during and after the India-Pakistan partition is unrivaled. He was personally responsible for dividing India’s and Pakistan’s borders and assets. He was instrumental in persuading the 565 princely nations to join the Union of India. This remarkable achievement earned Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel “India’s Iron Man.” Sardar Patel’s vision and work resulted in today’s India, with people of many ethnic and religious backgrounds uniting under one flag and one nation. As a result, on his birthday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi proclaimed “Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat” as a tribute to India’s Iron Man.
What is the scheme?
This program involves sharing culture across India’s various states and union territories. This will happen regularly. This will ensure that the country has a strong sense of unity and integrity. People will be able to accept and promote their own culture and identity due to this. This program honors the diverse cultural heritage of a community. People who are unaware of their own culture will learn about it and respect the culture of others. The Department of Higher Education, Department of School Education and Literacy, Department of Sports, and Ministry of Information and Broadcasting were among the 11 ministers initially involved in the initiative.
India’s culture and languages are the most diverse. The Indian country has a total of 1075 languages and dialects. Every 6 kilometers in length, there will be a slight shift in language. Even though Hindi is the most widely spoken language in India, the country’s inhabitants speak a total of 22 Scheduled Languages. India is a multilingual country, but it is also a secular one. Every citizen has the right to practice, profess, and spread the religion of their choice. The state has no preference for one religion over another. Hinduism is practiced by the majority of the people, followed by Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Atheists are individuals who do not believe in the existence of God.
Despite all of this diversity in language, culture, ethnicity, and religion, there are no barriers to unification. The Indian counter is all about brotherhood. The country as a whole is a giant family. This program nurtures and maintains this lovely and heavenly trait. States and Union Territories are mutually bound when paired from time to time. Cuisines, dancing forms, festivals, and other activities are all shared. Brotherhood is preserved in this way. Society becomes a healthy and prosperous place to live.
Objectives
The scheme’s principal goal is to promote national integration among citizens from various states and Union Territories by hosting periodic mutual cultural exchange programs.
It also aims to increase people’s sense of unity by helping them comprehend each other’s cultural and literary values. It also strives to foster a collaborative learning environment between states and UTs.
Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat Themes
The Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat events/programs are arranged around specific topics. The following are the most important themes on which the curriculum is based:
- To commemorate India’s cultural unity by bringing together people from various cultures across the country’s states and UTs. People deepen the intrinsic links of brotherhood across geographical and cultural divides through exchanging literature, cuisine, dance styles, movies, and other forms of expression.
- To raise public awareness of India’s diverse topography and the various cultures. Also, to instill in them the understanding that India will be more advanced if inhabitants remain unified, bridging cultural and geographical divides.
- To foster a sense of cultural affinity among Indians and impress upon them the importance of nation-building. People get more familiar with one other’s literature and culture as they interact in culture-based initiatives.
- To instill a sense of responsibility for the nation’s cultural integration. Due to this cross-cultural link, people from various states and UTs will improve their social conduct and interdependence in multiple ways.
The vision of Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat
India’s cultural variety is genuinely extraordinary and one-of-a-kind. Every Indian state and union territory has its own culture, traditions, and customs. Cuisine, language, religious practices, dancing forms, social and religious views, customary practices, ethnic dress, and other factors varied significantly. India’s beauty is that, despite their differences, the people are bound together by a fabric of national cohesion.
The Prime Minister of India, Mr. Narendra Modi, established the “Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat Yojana” to address this cultural integration among Indians and strengthen it further. The central concept is to encourage cultural exchange between states and UTs to familiarise them with cultures.
The Department of Higher Education, the Department of School Education and Literacy, the Department of Sports, and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting are some of the 11 ministries that have signed on to the plan.
States/UTs Mutual Engagements
The Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat Scheme is a one-year partnership between two states or union territories. Over a year, the individual states/UTs will carry out mutually organized activities, and events focused on language, cuisine, literature, festivals, and other topics.
The primary goal is to help people from different states/UTs comprehend one other’s cultural values while bridging existing gaps. Every state and UT must engage with one another under the plan. In this regard, states and UTs sign MoUs (Memorandums of Understanding) that detail all of the programs and events that will take place over a year.
The state of Andhra Pradesh, for example, was linked with Punjab in 2017. Punjabis learned Telugu and vice versa during this time. A variety of events were also held in which residents from the various states learned about each other’s food, practices, tourism, etc. Telugu folks also conducted a Punjabi food and wonderful cuisine-themed celebration. In both states, similar events on a variety of topics were held. Many works in both Telugu and Punjabi have been mutually translated.
Conclusion
The plan is as follows: Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat is a vital strategy that considers India’s cultural variety and its people’s togetherness. Regular exchanges of programs based on culture and ethnicity will increase people’s awareness of each other’s cultural values, strengthening fraternal links and the concept of a unified India as a whole.
