For the last few years, there has been an ongoing debate about India becoming an intolerant country, especially because of certain reported incidents against minorities and the growing popularity of the Hindutva ideology which propagates a homogeneous identity for all Indians. This perception may or may not be true, but they made me dig deeper into the question, was India a tolerant country in the first place? India has a history of casteism, and communal riots, and was the ideal place to implement the famous strategy used by British rulers called "divide and rule." How does tolerance fit into all these, what is the reason for the perception that India is a tolerant country? The reason is India's diversity, the presence of almost each and every religion or sect, and much more. Most of India's provinces have different languages, food habits, dress, festivals, literature, and cultural attributes, and some of them have their own movie industry that can even compete with Bollywood. Of course, there are many commonalities, Hinduism is a majority religion, and skin color and visual appearances are similar except for the northeast region which gets ignored in each and every aspect. All these aspects make India a very interesting case to analyze. Many places in the world are diverse, the US or Europe does have a diverse population where different people from different parts of the world coexist. However, there is one major difference between India and other places. India is neither like a melting pot where people from different places come together and begin to mix and form one homogeneous identity, nor it is a place where individuality or privacy is valued to give separate space to each and every identity so that they can thrive without being threatened by the majority.
Indian society either intentionally or unintentionally allowed the comingling of different religions and cultures, that is why I said that there are many differences as well as similarities. Different states of India despite being different borrowed food habits from each other, and their languages have common origins, even the most popular organized religions like Judaism, Christianity, or Islam the way they are practiced in India is different compared to the rest of the world. This comingling did not threaten the existence of any religion, they all exist and occupy their own space in Indian society so far. Britishers took advantage of this diversity by using the tactic of "divide and rule," either by creating the perception that the majority is threatened by the minorities or the minorities are under attack by the majority. The strategy worked and even after independence is used by different political parties at different times to reap political dividends.
India survived all such attacks so far, especially because of the uniqueness of India where diversity was considered as its strength, not a weakness. However, in today's world that mostly thrives on a unique identity this obscure, not-so-uniform, multireligious, and multicultural identity is projected as something weak or nonindigenous, and not unique. This perception is solidified by the rise of Hindutva ideology where being Indian means something homogeneous, definite, and deeply rooted in traditions of Hinduism. This narrative fits with most of the neighboring countries of India which are mostly homogeneous societies with a single religion dominating, social, political, cultural, and legal space. India was unique among all these countries specifically because of the reason that there was no easy way to define its identity. It was not a Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian, Buddhist, or any other religious or non-religious identity that defined India, it was at the same time all of these and none of these. I never understood this uniqueness until I left India and I don't think many Indians understand the value of this even today, that is why most of them agree with the propaganda that such a hybrid identity needs to be transformed into something definite and uniform. That's why I now feel that tolerance was not India's uniqueness but commingling was, this is because comingling is a step further than tolerance. Tolerance is when we tolerate our differences and decide to coexist despite those differences. Whereas commingling is where we not only tolerate the differences and coexist but despite our differences exchange and borrow each other's practices and incorporate them into each other's traditions and culture as our own, and still maintain our identity without being threatened by the presence of another.
This is not to say that tolerance is any better than commingling, or vice versa. I am aware that my impressions could be completely wrong and someone can offer a better explanation than what I offered above, I tried to articulate what my current understanding is about this issue.
Thanks for reading and please share your opinion about this topic.
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