Page Text
________________
has been an eternal bedrock of India's glorious past, adventurous present and bright future. In order to discern Indian identity one has to look precisely to the diverse cultural and sub-cultural traditions, which have evolved over times, in which the Indian people have been born and by which their general human sensibilities have been refined and shaped.
India being multi-lingual, multi-racial, multi-religious and multi-subcultural, there cannot be any fixed parameters of Indian identity. There are many elements, which have contributed in making of Indian identity. There is a generic identity and many specific sub-identities, each having one's own unique nature and features. So only an organicismic approach to Indianness can enable one to understand it properly and fully. One may argue that for an identity there must be common habitation or culture or way of living or pattern of thinking or language or race or religion etc. but none is attached to Indian-ness in an indispensable way. The simple reply is that in practice we do understand what is meant by being an Indian and it is a matter of common sense and logic that there is a consciousness of some principle of unity, howsoever vague and varied it may be, which enables us to apply this single individualizing appellation to a vast variety of ideas, practices and human beings.
Indian-ness is characterized by inclusive pluralism in which there is accommodation for each individual or unit. It has basic openness which is at once both centripetal and centrifugal. It is not a 'melting pot' but a unity-inmultiplicity ideally based on the principles of cooperation and sacrifice regulated by the spirit of duties and obligations rather than demands and rights. Unfortunately this base is fastly dwindling in modern times and there is an urgent need to revive, revitalize and consolidate it.
It has to be reminded that the Indian culture possesses inherent vitality and resilience, which has enabled it to survive the onslaughts of time and foreign invasions. This is due to its openness and catholicity to accommodate and absorb the diversity. It has displayed a remarkable symbiosis of two sensibilities of belongingness to the whole and of being a part of the whole, of relatedness and of self-identity. It advocates a communitarian or participatory mode of living implying distinctness of its members along with soli. darity with the whole enjoying an individual existence and yet partaking and sharing experiences with the whole. It is an inclusive social pluralism in which every individual becomes a person.
There is an unbroken spirituo-material culture of India which is uniquely its own which it is sharing with the outside world for more than three thousand years known in history, which is multifarious and manifold, which is living and has vitality to live. Because of its organicismic nature and character it displays a unity-in-multiplicity and becomes conducive to self-identity and self-preservation as well as group solidarity and group-co
214
| SR No. | 007005 |
| Book Title | World of Philosophy |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Christopher Key Chapple, Intaj Malek, Dilip Charan, Sunanda Shastri, Prashant Dave |
| Publisher | Shanti Prakashan |
| Publication Year | 2011 |
| Total Pages | 1002 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English |
| File Size | 30 MB |