What is a community? Is India a community?
I mentioned in the previous post that there’s a lot of discussion and debate and disagreement over what India is. There are several “ideas of India” floating around.
We are unable to agree over whether India is a community, a society, a culture, a nation, a republic, a civilization, or whether India is merely a geographical area that holds together a large number of distinct communities, distinct societies, distinct cultures, distinct ethnicities, and distinct identities.
The best way to resolve such issues is to examine each claim individually. Let us define each of these terms in a precise, unambiguous manner, and then determine whether it applies or not.
So let’s begin with the simplest question first: is India is a community?
The definition of community is very simple: A community is simply a group of people that have something in common.
Do you love watching football? Then you belong to the community of football lovers. Or watchers.
Do you actually play football? Then you belong to the smaller community of football players.
Do you play football professionally? Then you belong to the even smaller community of professional football players.
Do you play football internationally? Then you belong to the yet even smaller community of international football players.
Are you an Indian professional footballer who plays internationally? Then you belong to the very small community of Indian professional international football players.
So as you can see, communities can be large as well as small, and there can be communities within communities.
Take Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, for instance. These are large, global, virtual communities that have an immense number of smaller communities within them.
Communities can be global in scope, or they can be tiny and highly specialized.
Where were you born? You belong to the community of people who were born there.
Where do you live? That is a community as well. Your apartment is a community, your neighborhood is a community, your city, your town, your village is a community, and so is your country.
And that answers our question: Yes, India is indeed a community.
Next, we shall take up the question of whether India is a society.
Originally published at http://indianinterest.com on June 20, 2019.
