Port Blair, Nov 10 2020
Andaman and Nicobar Islands are located 1200 Kms from mainland India. These group of 572 Islands are often ignored by the mainstream media while depicting the maps on their television screens or in their newspapers and magazines. The situation has improved in the recent past but the ignorance still exists. Watch a weather bulletin on any mainstream news channel in India and one will never see even the outline of Andaman and Nicobar Islands on the displayed map.
The private news channels seldom give out weather bulletins on Andaman and Nicobar Islands. It is only during the cyclones which cause havoc in mainland India which mostly originates in Andaman Sea, that the name of Andaman Sea comes up.
We hear news of the Govt. issuing notices to the tech giants and television channels whenever a part of Kashmir is left out of the map of India. It has never been heard that such a notice being issued to any television channel for systematically ignoring an integral part of India from their programme maps for years.
The ignorance of the Islands are not just limited to the maps on television channels even popular songs which are mostly played and sung on important national festivals, ignore Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Everyone must have heard the song ‘Unche Himalay se Kanyakumari’ which is a very popular song often played and sung during important national festivals in schools and other official functions. The song ignores to acknowledge that there is land beyond Kanyakumari. It states that from Himalayas to Kanyakumari and from Bhramaputra to Cambay Ki Khadi (Gulf of Cambay) the land is ours. It ignores the fact that Indira Point in Great Nicobar Island is indeed the Southernmost tip of India.
Due to this systematic ignorance of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands the Islanders sometimes get disheartened, that they are not being acknowledged by their own countrymen, that their Union Territory is almost never displayed within the map of their country by their own countrymen in the channels which day and night speaks about the nation and nationalism.
The Islanders should start calling out these channels on Social Media for not displaying Andaman and Nicobar Islands on the Indian map everytime they ignore it. The action needs to transform into a mass movement where whenever someone does not display Andaman and Nicobar Islands on Indian map, the Islanders should use Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and every Social Media at their disposal to confront them. The next time you hear someone singing or playing ‘Unche Himalay se Kanyakumari’ politely correct them.
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