Letter Published on 10.12.23
THE UNEDITED VERSION
The unfortunate polarisation sought by politicians to create a spurious North-South divide is the consequence of vicious colonial Aryan-Dravidian narratives. We are perpetuating this narrative despite poor evidence. Our tendency to imbibe everything western to define ourselves and our nationhood is creating a social disaster. Across millennia, there was every sign of deep cultural interaction between the four corners of Bharatvarsha. “Dravidian” has a meaning either in the old geographical sense or in the modern linguistic sense; racial and separate cultural meanings are unscientific and irrational.
India is a cultural and civilizational state. Sri Aurobindo wrote that “the spiritual and cultural are the only enduring unity” beyond the understanding of the western mind. Despite a decentralised political organisation under various kings, the people had a unifying notion of a nation based on multiple traditions, rituals, mythology, customs, symbols (like Swastika), and Sanskrit for thousands of years. A dense network of holy places and temples (like the 12 Jyotirlingas, the 52 Shakti Mahapithas, and the 26 Upapithas) created the sacred geography of the country. Bharata views itself as a cultural unit with a federation of sub-identities preserving their individuality and equally contributing to the evolution of a common culture.
Our diversity and acceptance of diversity as a norm define civilizational India. Our nationalism precisely protects the ethos of multiculturalism. Western scholarship demands a political unity of homogenization (like linguistic or religious). States, nations, sovereignty, and nationalism are clearly rooted in European history. The consequences have been nationalism, colonialism, and world wars leading to global plunder and the extermination of local populations. Our nationalism was about absorption, not invasion.
India is a dynamic cauldron of many physical, spiritual, and social components (both Vedic and non-Vedic). Languages as the basis for the reorganisation of states is an artificial and forcible application of the “one language, one nation” theory traceable to Europe. In Indian kingdoms, multiple languages were the norm. However, post-independence, language has played a key and distressing role in Indian politics, which attempts a cultural homogenization of groups of people when none previously existed.
Bharatavarsha has been clearly defined in the oldest scriptures as the land south of the Himalayas and north of the oceans. The Ramayana and Mahabharata, the major tools for integration, describe with deep clarity the length and breadth of the country. We are one country where nationalism rests on different principles. We need the unity we always had, not divisions based on lazy scholarships and narrow political gains.
RANDOM MUSINGS 