Guha has brilliantly analysed the unity of India and gives credit to the foresight of the founding fathers.He misses one unique aspect of india'culture from times immemorial.india was one when a Keralite Shankaracharya travelled from Badrinath to Kankyakumari and established four centers of excellence in the four cornersof India.India was one when the scholars of Kashi held discourses in the same langusge with the scholars of Kochi in he south.India has been one becoz of its Vedic(hindu) ethos.It is secular not becoz of Nehru or Gandhi but becoz of a history of thousands of years of tolerance and democratic freedom to say what a Rishi or a saint wanted to say in Bengal or Tamilnadu.It never persecuted the worshippers coming from faroff places like christians,Parsees or muslims.The founding fathers ere imbued with these ideals from the hoary past. Dinesh
RE:Guha and his book
by RABI KANUNGO on Aug 27, 2007 09:31 AM Permalink
Dineshji, A well written opinion though I have not gone through Shri Ram Chandra Guha's book. Thank you very much. Let me add a point - when we say 'Hindu', it never adequately projects India's past with all adapatabilities, beauty and glamour that Indians tought from it. If nothing interfered in the course of history there was no necessity to teach Indian anything that was later termed as 'secularism'. Historically, Hindu is a confusing word that was imposed upon India and we are trying to be familiar. Rabi Kanungo Intellectual Forum.
