Ansari cautions against idea of homogeneous nation-state

At a time when Hindutva groups were aggressively pushing their religious agenda, Vice President Hamid Ansari has sounded a word of caution, saying, "The idea of a homogeneous nation-state is clearly problematic. Diversity is identifiable even in the most homogeneous of societies today."

Delivering the inaugural address at the 75th session of the Indian History Congress at the Jawaharlal Nehru University on Sunday, Ansari had a word of advice for the ruling dispensation of the day, noting that India had 4,635 communities, according to the Anthropological Survey of India. The diversity itself is a "terse reminder about the care that needs to be taken while putting together the profile of a national identity," he said.

Ansari, who as the presiding officer of the Rajya Sabha, has witnessed noisy scenes with the Opposition protesting against the "re-conversion" programmes of the Hindutva groups, said India's identity is "liberal and accommodative; marked neither by complete homogenisation nor by the particularism of closed communities".

Highlighting the "pluralist structures that have stood the test for six decades", Ansari emphasised the need to nurture them and cautioning that nations with single edifice structures "had come to grief". Globally, attempts to forge the "national identity" had led to escalating tensions and complexities, he said.

Ansari's address to the gathering of historians, warning them of the dangers of "propensity to read the past into the present or the present into the past", could be read as an advice for the incumbent government at the Centre. His comments come at a time when several Union ministers have been grabbing headlines with their controversial statements, which the Opposition sees as an attempt to polarise the people.

B Chattopadhyaya, who took over as the president of the History Congress, also echoed similar views in his address, saying: "Let us hope that today, we do not deliberately consign that country - our many Indias - to the blackhole of robotic uniformity in the name of integration and unity."

In sharp contrast to BJP-led government's emphasis on promoting Sanskrit, Chattopadhyaya cited empirical evidences to conclude that "Sanskrit has for long been the purveyor of a most pernicious ideology of social inequality through the concepts of varna, jati and varna samaskara, condemning a major chunk of Indian humanity to degraded segregation and untouchability."

Rakesh Batabyal, organising secretary of the Indian History Congress, highlighted the onerous responsibility that historians have to play.