On Wed, 2008-01-23 at 09:55 +0530, shiv sastry wrote:
> The fact is that such a commonality was repeatedly recognised and picked up
> and utilized by Shankaracharya, Viveknanda, Mahatma Gandhi and Aurobindo
> among others. But these names mean little or nothing from the viewpoint of
> the school education that Indian children get. Hence Indians go through life
> imagining that there is nothing unifying in India.
so? there are lots of commonalities among indians. there are lots of
commonalities among europeans. there is no evidence (certainly none you
cite) that the commonalities among indians (on whatever attributes) is
in any way greater than the commonalities among europeans (perhaps on
other attributes).
before 1947, india hasn't been one nation, politically, except under
imperial rule that was foreign to much of the population (yes, even
ashoka etc). as anyone who's wandered around south asian gatherings
abroad can testify to, punjabis have much more to share across the
religious and national boundaries than indian punjabis have to share
with people from nagaland or chennai.
similarly, large parts of europe have been part of one nation,
politically, under various imperial regimes that were seen as foreign by
at large parts of the population.
modern europe is composed of many nations, including some that make no
cultural sense, due to the rise of nationalism as a trait in the 18th
and 19th centuries. that essentially european trait is well represented
in india, which never went through an indigenous period of nationalism.
in many parts of the world, wealth leads to a form of nationalism based
increasingly on shared economic interest. the US is one of the few
countries explicitly defined by shared values aligned to economic
interest ("life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness") and the absence
of too much history is precisely why "foreigners" can integrate much
better and faster and more successfully there than in any other country.
at least if their presence there is voluntary.
