When the entire mankind is seeking to think in terms of larger and larger political association and even of One World based upon the vital unity of the human race and to cultivate cosmopolitan outlook and international mind as the subjective or psychological condition of that consummation, it is prejudicial to the progress of humanity to create new fields of division in a narrow spirit of linguism.
India as an integral unity has inevitably developed a certain ideology, outlook and traditions inspired by Nature and reinforced by History and their accumulated momentum will not yield to a stroke of politics.
No one can deny that India has been marked out by Nature as an indisputable geographical unit, clearly separated from the rest of Asia by outstanding natural boundaries, the mountains of the North and the seas of the South.
And even deep down this patent geographical unity, there lies an underlying unity founded on the rocks of ages.
These rocks are the sources of India’s mineral wealth. They are not affected by the artificial divisions of the country on the surface, which are dictated by merely political considerations. They have built up with vengeance, below that surface, a deeper and inviolable unity expressing itself in a continuous and continental subterranean expanse underlying and embracing within its comprehensive group the geographical areas of different States in utter defiance of the artificial boundaries which divide them above.
India’s geographical unity thus laid broad and deep in the rocky foundations of her geological structure mocks at human design for its division which does not rest on any natural or physical grounds!
It will appear that the natural resources of India are so divided and distributed among its different parts that they must hold on together and remain united as far as possible in a common economic system which can promote the prosperity of each to the full extent of its potentialities.
The call of industrial progress promoting the greatest good of the greatest number is a call for unity in the midst of political and administrative divisions.
The financial call for unity is no less imperative in the way of obtaining foreign capital and import on cheapest terms.
The linguistic division of India cannot obliterate certain national and historical memories on both sides of a division.
It cannot wipe out the life and history of centuries.
It is essential that the States respect, preserve and promote these deeper unities in the life of their people without emphasizing their differences which are comparatively superficial and confined only to politics, for politics does not exhaust the totality of life’s interests.
The field of culture is much wider and reconciles differences in a comprehensive synthesis.
Within India, its citizens should regard it as a religious duty to promote its own unities for the cultivation of a cosmopolitan all-India outlook, to subdue a narrow spirit of localism and provincialism which threatens to be one of the greatest obstacles to the growth of India as a strong national State.
In the cultivation of this wide spiritual outlook, it is fortunate that a Hindu can draw his inspiration from his sacred scriptures.
These help him to worship Mother India in her visible form presented in so many ways and meditate on her Virata-Deha in all its majesty and magnificence by uttering the preliminary purificatory mantra:
“Ganga cha Yamune chaiva Godavari Sarasvati,
Narmade Sindhu Kaveri jalesmin sannidhum kuru.”
In this water, I invoke the presence of holy waters from the rivers
Ganga, Yamuna, Godavari, Saraswati, Narmada, Sindhu and Kaveri.
The worship of Deshmatrika is a part of Hindu religion and its texts and prayers are not subject to politics.
Spirit must triumph over matter. Thought is catholic and cosmopolitan.
Mankind must invoke all aids to the cultivation of the spirit of Universal Brotherhood.
The spirit, according to Hindu philosophy, clothes itself in the body in and through which it works; it needs a vehicle, an instrument, a physical framework whereby it expresses and outshapes itself in the external world of matter. And it seems that the same principle applies in respect of the spirit of nationality.
A common fatherland is preliminary to all national development: around that living nucleus will naturally gather all those feelings, associations, traditions and other elements which go to make up a people’s language and literature, religion and culture, demanding its preservation and independent development as a valuable cultural unit.
The unifying influence of a common country, of common natural surroundings is indeed irresistible, and the assertion may be safely made that it will be effectively operative against other disintegrating, disruptive forces and tendencies such as differences in manners and customs, language and religion.
For India as a free and sovereign Nation, the most important of its problems is the strengthening of its internal cohesion and unity against the disintegrating forces created by the racial, religious and linguistic differences dividing its people.
These cannot be welded together into a living nation, a puissant political entity, unless in the first place they can understand and feel that they have a common country to love and serve, that they all belong to one Motherland and are all children of the same soil.
The citizens of Free India, irrespective of their cultural and social differences, must keep alive a living conception of their mother-country as an integral unity against the prevailing trend of political thought towards disintegrating India with smaller linguistic States.
~ Dr. Radha Kumud Mookerjee, Indian Historian and Nationalist
