A case against homogeneity
There are quite a few things which I don’t agree with but there is one thing mentioned in public discourse which of late bothers me a lot.
It is this urge among scholars/academicians to categorise India as an unnatural state. Basically implying that our sheer diversity is an outlier in comparison to more compact states.
In reality, most compact homogeneous states exist primarily at the cost of sacrificing its diversity through sustained discrimination or through a long slow death. Or at times even because they are able to showcase themselves as homogenous like China has successfully done despite a considerable area being non-Chinese ethnically speaking. If I’ve to push this argument further one can cite the usage of Chinese script by many ethnicities (Han or otherwise) whereas the language they actually converse in, is not intelligible with Mandarin. Even otherwise, states like France or Spain or Italy or Bangladesh are not exactly homogeneous with isolated micro communities who have nothing much to do culturally with their national mainstream.
Yet it is as if India is being penalised for its diversity while mostly ignoring the commonness among Indians at large. As if it’s a crime to sustain a very old civilisation with all its anomalies and merits. And yes its diversity of all possible kinds.
