Why Have Faith In The Great Indian Experiment

The year 1947 marked the last time a large group of people in sub-continental India experienced "democratic equality", something unheard of for millennia. Experts predicted failure. Why? It didn't have one language, one culture, one religion, but more of poverty, illiteracy, and too much diversity of all kinds.?

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There are open, multiple attempts to crush such diversity! So it is easy to lose hope finally. But do not. The experiment will survive.?

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Brute uniformity does not help mankind as much as diversity does. No group of people truly develops constantly in a changing world, unless it accepts diversity. A homogeneous group cannot fulfill a vast range of needs. The pluralists know this instinctively. The anti-pluralists fight diversity, and are doomed to lead a broken life and may perish faster. Nature survives on biodiversity, and mankind on cultural diversity.

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The nature of India's historically evolved collective consciousness is quite different and has deep elements of respect and mutual acceptance. Today's forced uniformity being tried goes entirely against this historical truth of India. What is being tried is the worst format of the European model of nation-making, but it won't work here.?

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Experts of history give us two insights - (i) there is an inherent tolerance in Hindu culture that many external invaders benefitted from (till some Indians said enough is enough), and (ii) Indian culture is no different, and had the same conflict, violence, and persecution, and an accidental balance of power happened as no group was large enough to wipe others out (and Kings and rulers love stability, so promoted the balance).?

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It is quite true that Indian history has been quite violent, and no utopian peace dream. Fights between Hindus and Jains, Hindus and Buddhists, Shaivites and Vaishnavites, and Hindu ascetic orders were common. Temples were destroyed by these groups (of the opposing camp). Nearly all kingdoms engaged in terrible violence - the Senas, Greeks, Sakas, Kushans, Huns, Muslims. Today's average Hindu remembers the Muslim violence and forgets the other.?

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It wasn't just one Islam that came to India. Different Islams arrived with different motives - some to loot, some to rule, some to battle other Muslim rulers! Babar came to beat the Muslim ruler Lodhi, not any Hindu king. And most who came loved the plurality of India and settled here.

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For hundreds of years, various Hindu and Muslim rulers followed non-partisan justice systems, punishing their people faster than that of opposing faith, if found wrong. Muslim royalty mediated in fights between various sects of Jains, Hindus, and Sikhs, to bring peace. Various "mathas" like Gorakhnath in Jakhbar (Jammu) and Gorakhpur (Uttar Pradesh) received grants from every Mughal ruler.?

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India's historical truth is that there were no permanent enemies, but peaceful cohabitation was the norm. It is this understanding that guided Mahatma Gandhi and other constitution-makers. That is why the common Indian will, sooner or later, the sheer futility of religious violence.?

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India has a great future because the common Indian is fundamentally tolerant, guided by centuries of coexistence.?

- Aindri Abhishek Singh

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