Switzerland for the uninitiated - Part I

Indians as such, are never exposed a lot to Europe, when they are in school. I guess this has to do with most of them ruling over us for 200 years.  But still ! Little had I ever heard about this small country called Switzerland, tucked in between 'great' powers like France and Germany. All that most in India know about this kutty country, is its beauty (courtesy: Bollywood movies). And bollywood cinema might be the reason why it is a popular honeymoon destination for newly beloved and rich Indians. Lately, it has been popular among rich Indians for hoarding their black money in the banks here. Trust me, when I say I am not here for the same reasons. I write this post, not only to bring out a lot of amazing facts, but also to show how Switzerland can really connect with modern India.

The diversity present inside such a small country is absolutely amazing. For starters, Switzerland does not have a single language. Same as India. It has four official languages, namely Swiss-German, French, Italian and Romansh. With Romansh being the only language, completely native to Switzerland. But mind you, they do not have a national language. They never forced any language upon  each other after becoming a nation. Even today, they do not have any common language to speak to all the Swiss. Compare this to India, where we thankfully had English to avert a national disaster. This diversity has its roots in the Swiss history and how Switzerland came into existence, which in itself is very interesting and complex tale.

To cut a long story short, Switzerland was initially only a bunch of princely states that was left intentionally ''unconquered'' to create a buffer zone between great powers of France and Habzburgs (Germany & Austria). Then Napoleon got pissed for some reason, invaded and put all these states together into one country called ''Helvetic Republic''. They didn't stay together though, after the French left. Too many differences on religion ! (some cantons were catholic, some protestant). Finally a war happened, as expected, and the radical protestants won. They then established the country and made it a federal republic called, "Confoederatio Helvetica". This is why Switzerland is often denoted with the letters - CH. But mind you, the federal system established was only to be sovereign nation. The cantons retained all the power and they do so till date !

This small piece of a country is further divided into 26 cantons  !  India, which is  80 times bigger in size and 150 times larger in population, has only 29 states.  And each canton is powerfully autonomous and each canton has its own official language, religion and way of doing things. These cantons are further divided into small communes. So every person here has three citizenships. He is first a citizen of the commune, then comes the canton and then only comes the  nation. Phew! Imagine something like that in India. Oh wait a sec! Isn't something like that happening already ?

(To be continued...)