Understanding India

Understanding India

India is a mystique. Many people, including the politicians- the ruling class- are ignorant about India’s rich history and cultural heritage.  It is this ignorance that is the root cause of all present day problems.

India is many things to many people.  Jawaharlal Nehru in The Discovery of India wrote in his eloquent style:“Today, she is four hundred million separate individual men and women, each differing from the other, each living in a private universe of thought and feeling.  If this is so in the present, how much more difficult is it to grasp that multitudinous past of innumerable successions of human beings. Yet something has bound them together and binds them still. India is a geographical and economic entity, a cultural unity amidst diversity, a bundle of contradictions held together by strong but invisible threads. Overwhelmed again and again, her spirit was never conquered. About her there is the elusive quality of a legend of long ago; some enchantment seems to have held her mind. She is a myth and an idea, a dream and a vision, and yet very real and present and pervasive. ”

India is a land of Gods where religion and philosophy have attained the culminating point- an ancient land that gave birth to four religions and where all the faiths are practiced and  where more than  hundred languages and hundreds of dialects are spoken- a cultural mosaic. It is a land of timeless epics Ramayan and Mahabharat- gyan ki ganga- that offer lessons on dharm and righteousness, and a  land of Vedas, Upanishads and Puranas and countless sages and saints,Buddhas and Mahatmas- a range of great minds of thought and  knowledge and wisdom.

Freedom of religion and religious tolerance are central to the Indian philosophy and civilisation. Hinduism believes in diversity and tolerance, with Hindus having pantheons of Gods to choose. It is more a way of life than a religion. As the renowned historian Arnold Toynbee said: “The spirit of mutual goodwill, esteem and veritable love is the traditional spirit of the religions of the Indian family. This is one of India’s gifts to the world.”  

India is an idea. A life time will not be enough to explore and discover India and understand her various facets. How a country with such vast ethnic, religious and cultural diversity has remained as one geographical and political entity could be a matter of research and unending discovery, particularly when religion and ethnicity divided the nations.  India is surrounded by totalitarian and dictatorial regimes with ethnicity, religious bigotry and militancy threatening to tear them apart. And if India is successfully experimenting with  democracy-the most sophisticated form of government - in a very conservative society of inequality, it is due to the vision of the founding fathers of our Republic. We have emerged as a model to the rest of the world as the largest democracy managing ‘a bundle of contradictions’ inherent in a plural and traditional society. Only a free society where every individual is treated equal and enjoys equal opportunities could make this happen. 

Barack Obama, whose ancestors were African slaves, could become the first citizen of America because of the opportunity the land of liberty afforded him.  If a black, who belongs to the most oppressed class, could rise to become the President of a most powerful nation, so also India has umpteen examples of the most oppressed section of the society climbing up the social and political ladder and reaching the highest positions of power and authority in public life.  The West is only rediscovering what is inherent in the Indian tradition,culture and history.  Just as Lord Krishna told Arjuna in the battlefield of Kurukshetra to perform his duty of fighting against adharm, it is our duty to enrich India’s rich heritage.  And Gandhi and Nehru- the father of nation and the father of modern India- are an integral part of that heritage.