I am not a critic at all, nor an expert.
I just see the nation of India as highly unusual, and lacking much of the commonality that other nations display. India is a great country, but what others can you name with as many languages (or even only, say three) that have survived for more than 100 years?
I often wonder how much diversity the U.S. will be able to take on without rupture, but at least in this case the various ethnic groups are mixed in together, not geographically defined as in India. Too, there was an established cultural paradigm, to which new arrivals fit themselves while changing the paradigm. Not several side by side cultures of fairly equal strength.
Some of the arguments you state would apply to a World Nation or, as I amused myself earlier, the United States of Southeast Asia. Yet we do not see that. Latin America is much more homogeneous than the Sub-Continent, yet no nation there. Europe has religion in common to a greater extent than India, yet no nation there.
Would India be a nation today absent foreign conquerors and colonialists? Surely a foreign thrusting together would be not a lasting compulsion for nationhood.
Again, I do not pretend to be any sort of expert. I have wondered over these questions and am certainly open to learning, to the extent that these dead brain cells can reconfigure themselves.
Thank you for your reply. |
