Opinion
Unity in diversity: It’s India’s only realistic path to success
Summary
- It may sound like a cliche, but any yawn it draws would be at our very own peril. The long arc of the nation’s ascent since freedom in 1947 owes much to this basic resolve, bonded as we are to nobody but one another by the Constitution. Slice reality this way or that, it’s our winning formula.
The late British prime minister Winston Churchill infamously remarked, “India is merely a geographical expression. It is no more a single country than the Equator." The pugilistic Churchill, no friend of India, seldom hid his distaste for Indians, referring to us once as “beastly people." Ignorance levels have dropped since.
Today, we are widely known for what we are: a rainbow nation of mind-boggling diversity, a blend of ethnicities, a profusion of mutually incomprehensible languages, and a host of religions, cultural practices and topographies. Indeed, that is the very beauty of India—brilliantly multi-chrome, not boringly monochrome.
Yes, we might have seemed like an artificial construct back in 1947, when the British partitioned the country and the first government of Independent India had the tough job of amalgamating many princely states.
Also read: President Murmu highlights India’s economic growth, sports wins, and constitutional values in Independence Day speech
But now, no one, but no one, will dispute that we are one country. While many others have split up, we have not only survived as a union, but lifted vast numbers out of grinding poverty.
In GDP terms, India is now the world’s fifth largest economy. Best of all, we have not done this through the barrel of a gun, like China, but by empowering every Indian with the right to vote. We have the right to express dissent and change governments, peacefully, through the ballot box.
For all the Western criticism of imperfections in our democracy, we have remained one. What’s more, we have never seen an insurrection of the kind witnessed by the US on 6 January 2021, when its Capitol Hill was stormed by a mob bent on preventing its election winner from taking office.
Instead, peaceful transfers of power after an electoral loss by an Indian government are so taken for granted that no political party or leader would dare question the verdict of people, no matter how unfavourable. Does this mean all is fine and the promise that “We the people" made to ourselves three-quarters of a century ago has been fulfilled? No.
Our economy might be the fifth largest, but we’re almost a billion-and-a-half, so our income per head places us closer to the bottom of the global league table. Sure, it is many times what it was at the stroke of that midnight hour in 1947.
Also read: The long arc of India’s journey: We still have miles to go before we sleep
But, as we have seen from recent tragic events in Bangladesh, higher per capita income in itself does not mean much. Equity matters. What’s important is how a country’s wealth and income are distributed among its people.
Success is about our quality of life, as shaped by access to basic healthcare, education, law-and-order and the inalienable right to life and liberty—free speech included. For all this, promises made by the Constitution must be upheld.
So, as we celebrate our 78th Independence Day, we cannot afford to rest on our laurels. While we have come a long way, we have an even longer way ahead before we’ll be able to “wipe every tear from every eye," in the words of Mahatma Gandhi. This challenge can only be met through ‘unity in diversity.’
It might sound like a cliché, but it’s clearly the way forward. As it happens, it is also what fosters a free market for ideas, which, as Europe’s emergence from its Dark Ages showed, can act as a hotbed of innovation.
Also read: Independence Day 2024: Evolution of the Indian flag over the years from 1904 to 1947
Hence, we must nurture what unites us, rather than stir up what divides us. If India is to be an oasis of peace and stability in a fractious part of the world, fraught with violence, each of us must work to safeguard our diversity and hard-won freedom.
