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Unity in Diversity |
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 'Children
are not born with rejudices in their minds. Distinctions of class,
caste, religion, region, culture and language are afflictions of the
adult mind on the young minds. Left to themselves, children are naturally
integrated. Unfortunately, those entrusted with nurturing the child
fill the young mind with various prejudices. It is, therefore, necessary
that those prejudices are removed. The genius of our civilisation - of the Indian civilisation, is that we have not poured our cultures into one melting-pot like the Chinese; we have not drawn national boundaries on linguistic frontiers like Europe has; we have not permitted religion to divide people from people. This has been the strength of our civilisation for over five thousand years. There are other civilisations that are as old - the Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Greek, Chinese - there are others with unbroken continuity like ours, such as European and Chinese; but our unique claim is that we have been able to have unity inspite of this diversity. We have had a 'Bharatvarsha' or an India, or a Hindustan as Indiraji had said, for thousands of years. Throughout our history, through our mythology, in our rites and in our rituals and customs, the concept has been expanded to embrace all our different religions, our cultures, our languages and our regions. And, it has also included all the positive influences from outside. No other civilisation can match ours in its capacity to absorb, to assimilate and to synthesise. From ancient times, we have had a self-confidence not to shut our windows. We have had a-self-confidence to recognise that crossfertilization does not mean subordination but, instead, enrichment. Our national unity is founded in these ancient precepts. The most dangerous threat to that unity, today, is narrow-mindedness. There is no place in India for intolerance of any kind, for chauvinism of any kind, for narrowness of any kind. As Gurudev Tagore said: "Where the mind is led forward into ever-widening thought and action, into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake." ' |
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