India, truly, is a magical country, with an incredible degree of cultural, religious and racial diversity. The fact that such a magnificent amount of diversity has functioned as a nation for more than 60 years is an unbelievably fascinating development. Of course, I believe that some quantity of acclaim must be reserved for Hinduism as well. I deem that Hinduism has glued a majority of the parts of India. Hinduism, practiced by a majority of the inhabitants of India, has connected the different parts of India. Hinduism is a religion that is practiced by the different linguistic communities in India such as the Punjabis, the Tamils, the Gujaratis, the Marathis, etc. The history and the customs of each of these linguistic communities are different. But they are united by their devotion and respect for the Hindu religion.

To a large extent, multilingual India has been tranquil. It has been bereft of horrendous linguistic disturbances. Yes, there have been linguistic riots sparked off by chauvinistic groups. But, by and large, India has been devoid of communalistic strife and belligerence. India has not undergone lethal Balkanization. The Indian provinces were reorganized linguistically in 1956 as a result of the recommendations of the States Reorganization Commission. Sometimes, I feel that the restructuring of the provinces on linguistic lines prevented India from being Balkanized.

The nationalistic intermingling of the diverse mores of the different linguistic communities symbolizes the Indian civilization. As mentioned earlier, I judge that a significant degree of credit needs to be bequeathed to Hinduism for maintaining the unity and integrity of India. For sure, the federal nature of the Indian polity also is praiseworthy since it has realized the demand of regional semiautonomy.  You have the dreadful and grisly example of the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia was a multicultural, multilingual and multiethnic country that existed since the termination of WW 2. But by the late 1980s, the ethnic, religious and linguistic competitiveness that had been simmering for a long time exploded into an all-out war that eventually led to destruction of Yugoslavia. The disintegration of Yugoslavia was a particularly awful event that liquidated thousands of blameless people.

India, the soil of which has experienced so many wars of conquest by foreign races, has emerged, out of every crisis, a more mature and responsible nation that has retained its tolerant civilizational ethos. The Hindu civilization of India has exhibited an enormous amount of resilience on being confronted with crises. Today, India, despite its chaotic democracy and its incredibly pluralistic character, is one of the strongest economies of the globe. During the colonial era, many haughty whites, especially the Europeans, had predicted that a multilingual but unified India will not last for many years. It will collapse soon. The multiplicity of religions in India was cited as another reason for the imminent dissolution of a united India. But India has proved all these predictions of doomsday wrong.

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