https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/goa/true-global-citizens-prez-kovind-meets-the-goans/articleshow/64982131.cms
Every so often, the Republic of India throws up a leader who underlines the virtues and benefits of its complicated, messy, ongoing experiment with democracy. This is the case with President Ram Nath Kovind, who was elected 14th president of the country almost exactly a year ago. He was born into a traditionally landless Dalit community in what is now Uttar Pradesh, in a ramshackle mud hut that collapsed some time later. When his impoverished family moved to a thatched dwelling, it caught fire and his mother was burned to death. This future president of India walked eight kilometres each way to get to school, but persevered with his studies until he became a celebrated lawyer, eventually joining the BJP in 1991. On his first official visit to what he called “one of our country’s most beautiful and enlightened states” President Kovind was extremely impressive, highly dignified and unusually thoughtful. Speaking at the 30th annual convocation of Goa University, he praised the institution for its “liberal and cosmopolitan character, in keeping with the ethos of the state,” adding “this is a major strength and it should not get diluted.” He later pointedly returned again to the theme at a civic reception attended by the state’s political leadership, saying “Goa was a centre of international trade and traders from as far as Japan and Africa have visited it. Goans are real global citizens due to their extensive contact with the world. This state is an example of cosmopolitan culture.” President Kovind’s perceptive and praiseworthy comments comprise a real point of pride for India and its civilizational values and aspirations, especially right now when the twin black clouds of intolerance and xenophobia are mushrooming rapidly in so many other parts of the world. At this juncture, the prevailing view of Western countries is probably best encapsulated in the view of UK prime minister Theresa May, “if you’re a citizen of the world, you’re a citizen of nowhere.” It is an absurd, and extraordinarily retrograde position to have arrived at after centuries of relentless globalization and irreversible intermingling of cultures. Vivid proof that Kovind is absolutely right, and May is most dreadfully wrong, has been playing out in plain view of most of the planet all through the 2018 FIFA World Cup, now in its dramatic finale in Russia. Here, we have seen unending evidence that citizenship and identity are certifiably not the identical things any more, and both are entirely fungible concepts. Close to 10% of the players represent different countries from where they were born, including almost all of Iran’s starters. When Switzerland won its emotional tie against Serbia, the most fervent nationalism on display was Kosovar Albanian, as Granit Xhaka and Xherdan Shakiri spread their fingers in the double eagle symbol of their ancestral homeland. All this is just as it should be in the 21stcentury. The veteran defender Vincent Kompany puts it best, “I represent my heritage. I feel 100% Belgian, and 100% Congolese. I’m proud of that. It’s a wealth on my side to be able to do that.” What is more, the Manchester City player says he “sounds more and more like an English guy. Look, my kids are English so I have no problem.” Those kinds of sentiments resonate very strongly with Goans, whose long history of diaspora and assimilation in many countries around the world have never diluted or supplanted deep roots and the feelings of connection to their beloved homeland. This is precisely what President Ram Nath Kovind unerringly identified as the rare degree of “cosmopolitan character” that persists in Goa, even as much as the rest of the country descends in the exact opposite direction.
