Unity. The fundamental concept of people with common belief,experience,or feelings,standing together to express their mutual support towards one another and for a greater cause. Now “Unity” is specific firstly, to cause and secondly, to commonality. People unite for a cause. The cause comes into existence first and as a result people get united. As an example, the current strike by Doctors across the country can be taken into consideration. The cause here is the requirement of security for medical colleges, hospitals and other health facilities. This cause united doctors all over the country. The second factor is commonality. People get united because of a commonality within them. For example, religion unites people by the mere principle of unity due to commonality. People following the same faith tend to be united as a community. Similarly, along with religion, we have, culture, political aspirations, race or kinship which unites people on the grounds of commonality. However, there is another factor which does unite people and that is contiguity. This factor can also be seen as the very first factor which led to unity amongst men. A time when humans lived as hunters and gatherers, the formation of tribes and the unity amongst tribesmen was possibly because of the fact that they lived together, and just this physical presence around each other gave birth to the unity amongst them.
Slowly as civilisation came about, the emergence of princely states was seen. The unity between people of a kingdom could be because of the fact that they lived together, spoke the same language, worshipped the same God,and that their loyalty lay with the same ruler. But with time we saw the emergence of many different religions, languages, and different forms of governance were brought up. These divisions: religion, caste, political aspirations; are all man-made, and because of these divisions we are today united not as a whole but as sub-groups of each of these heads by being “Hindus” or ”Muslims;” “Brahmins” or “Dalits.” However, contiguity is above all these divisions. The only “division” contiguity faces is that of physical boundaries. Contiguity can help unite people living together in a restricted physical area. Contiguity can help all Indians be united as Indians because of its restricted boundaries. Similarly, Americans are united as Americans by contiguity within their borders. However, Contiguity does not help Indians and Americans be united. Here comes in the clause of uniting with someone for something, or as I earlier mentioned uniting for a cause. This unity is however, temporary. For example countries can unite for matters of widespread concern like global warming, or terrorism but once these issues are dealt with, the unity becomes secondary and subjective to each country’s own benefit. (the reason behind the failure of one international peace keeping body: League of Nations) In respect to this form of unity, unity by commonality and contiguity is more lasting. As long as sub-groups exist, seeking to create more divisions in the name of uniting those of the same kind, unity within those sub-groups would exist. Similarly, as long as physical borders separate humans, unity by contiguity would exist.
In today’s scenario, it is quite understandable that we Indians are now more divided and supposedly united due to our commonality. Within our great nation, Hindus are united with other Hindus, Muslims with other Muslims; Dalits with other Dalits, Brahmins with other Brahmins. But we need to understand that this unity by commonality is in respect to unite against a common enemy. We find commonality within ourselves just to differentiate ourselves from others. This means that even if we have people of the same religion in a place there would still be conflict because us humans, just like animals, have a conflicting nature. We would want to prove ourselves as better or superior which is why even as Hindus (which is an existing sub-group) we would go onto further divide ourselves than other Hindus. But when it comes to oppose another faith like Islam, all Hindus, despite their differences are united. Similarly, all Scheduled castes when fighting for representation against the “non-scheduled tribes” are all united but when left alone, form divisions within themselves to be the higher caste in scheduled castes. So, we tend to form a hierarchy in whatever form of commonality we are a part of. Now because we want to show ourselves as the “superior” one, our ability to continue to divide ourselves knows no limits. So much such hat even the highest social class-the Brahmins have five different sub-groups: Saryupareen Brahmins, Kanyakubja Brahmins, Maithil Brahmins, Saraswat Brahmins and Utkala Brahmins and naturally a ranking amongst them. This means that we simultaneously call to be united and also divide ourselves to prove ourselves more superior than those we “unite” with in the first place.
What I am trying to say here is that we want unity. Now comes in the understanding that we can only be united if we are with those of our own kind, and that naturally everybody cannot be of the same kind. Now to find one’s own “kind” we divide ourselves on the basis of commonality like caste or religion. Now that we are united with those of our own kind we would want to prove ourselves better or superior to those who we are united with. (The reason why we have sub-groups within sub-groups ).And in order to prove oneself as superior we will further create more divisions in order to form a hierarchy. Each of the groups in this hierarchy would develop as individual united sub-groups. What we don’t realise is that in order to differentiate ourself from others, we can go on and on forever, dividing ourselves. Which is why by trying to unite with common features, we end up dividing ourselves more because we are trying to find commonness in people who are meant to be different. This is also the reason why when we try to unite people with common features, we cannot unite a lot of people in its true entirety. Therefore, this entire practise of uniting people by commonness is flawed.
What we should be doing is uniting ourselves for the bigger picture. Even if one is Dalit or a Hindu, this is not our identity. We need is realise that our identity is our nationality and that is of an Indian. Outside of our own narrow minds, nobody cares if we are the highest caste, we would be recognised and treated just like any other Indian. So that is what should unite us. Our identity as Indians should be our uniting factor. We should unite as a nation and not as individuals. When was the last time something good happened to us when we were united as individual groups? We were enslaved for a good long 190 years. And what happened when we united as a nation, despite of our differences: we got independence.
To conclude I would just say that it is time to do away with all these divisions, these tags of “Hindus” or “Brahmins” that we carry around and and realise the importance of the fact that these calls of unity for a community is just another political scheme of manipulation, or an attempt to further divide us. And when we do unite as Indians, will we be worthy enough to regard ourselves as a nation, until then we are just a country with a lot of diversity.
