Ill-informed Indians follow post-colonial scholars using the modern definition of a nation-state and declare that India was somehow a creation of the west and we were “never a nation.” Standard western theories, mainly Marxist-influenced, trace the origins of nations in transformations which achieve a “cultural homogenization” based on language, religion, ethnicity, and so on. Thus, scholars at JNU believe that India is incoherent, fragmented, and marked by foundational differences.
However, “nation” does not do justice to India’s expression of oneness. India has been an ancient “felt community” for thousands of years because it does not emerge through deliberate systematization. This process manifests itself as “culture” autonomous of the state. Thus people, despite many diversities, could belong to the same set of meanings, symbols, and land (swastika, the lotus, the temples, the pilgrimages, Sanskrit language, and so on) as a great unity. Bharatvarsha exists in the oldest scriptures as the land “south of the Himalayas and north of the oceans.” The Mahabharata, Ramayana, and the Vishnu Purana describe “Bharata” Varsha with clarity in the various travels of its characters across the land. The 12 Jyotirlingas, the 52 Shakti Mahapithas, and the 26 Upapithas spread over the Indian subcontinent became the defining point to draw the boundaries of the country based on pilgrimages. Despite an absent political unity (with few exceptions) in the European definition of nation, a united geo-cultural India existed for thousands of years making India a continuously surviving civilizational state.
The words Hindu, Hindutva, and Hinduism remain undefined in unambiguous terms even today constitutionally, legally, and academically giving rise to many controversies. Whether Hinduism is synonymous with or is a subset of Sanatana Dharma, the only understanding of India can come from within the framework of this Dharmic philosophy defining and permeating the land of India. Only Sanatana Dharma, a huge conglomerate of traditions, has the immense capacity to absorb all faiths, religions, and beliefs if they go on the path of becoming traditions. The key to harmony in a traditional world comes from its fundamental philosophy of an “indifference to differences” which far transcends the classical paradigms of “tolerance, acceptance, and mutual respect of the other.”
Indian culture and traditions are an unbroken continuity for thousands of years, a melting pot of all three purported human groupings (Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid); six language families (Indo-European, Dravidian, Austric, Sino-Tibetan, Burushaski, and Andamanese); many traditions (Vedic and non-Vedic interacting in a syncretic mode); and many religions configuring in the traditional mould. We are one people and one land. The solutions for multiculturalism and harmony can only come from us but only if we truly understand the nature of traditional India and not become too fascinated with whatever the west says about us.
RANDOM MUSINGS 