Govt does not realise erasing diversity is anti-historical move: Sibal

In a sharp attack at the BJP-led government, Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal on Monday said the present establishment does not realise that erasing diversity is an "anti-historical" move and will lead to tensions.

Delivering the 4th Memorial Lecture in honour of M P Veerendra Kumar, Sibal talked about the idea of India and its evolution at length.

"Why do we talk about the idea of India? It is because most of us do not understand the birth of this great nation. If you ask me, a nation is comprised of so many facets which are embedded in its history. Unless you understand the history of a nation and its genesis over centuries, you will never be able to understand what the nation is all about," Sibal said.

"In order to understand what a country stands for you must understand how it evolved over centuries and once you understand that, you realize what India is all about," the former Congress leader said.

The idea of India has evolved over centuries, he asserted.

"Why is it that we are such a diverse nation? Why is it that diversity is embedded in our culture? Why is it we are what we are? For that we have to delve into thousands of years of our history," he said.

Sibal talked about how the country's history evolved from the Gupta period to the invasion of the Khiljis, right through to the Sayyids and the Lodhis, the invasions of the Afghans and the Turks.

The flow of populations that came from the Khyber pass, the assimilation of cultures that took place over the years, the Independent Rajya Sabha MP said.

Then came the Mughal period and the conflicts and collaborations that took place between Muslims and Hindus, he said.

Then came the British and they realised that they could not rule without collaboration with communities, Sibal said.

"So this process of collaboration and diversification made India what it is today. The India that we live in today is by its very nature and genesis, diverse. Its diversity is not something that is an idea, its diversity is a social evolution of historical reality. We cannot get away from it," the former Union minister asserted.

There is no other country in the world like India because there is no other country with the kind of history that India has, he said.

"We are not a monolithic culture, we are not ruled by a class of people, there are thousands of dialects and languages that flourish here and the reality of India today is not because of us but because of certain historical facts. We have to deal with a place like Manipur because the British aggrandised right up to Burma. If you have the Rohingya problem, it is because of our association and the conquest of the British in far flung areas," he said.

"If you talk about the Afghans today, they assimilated into our culture, the Turks were assimilated into our culture. There was cross fertilisation. It led to diverse processes of thought. That is what we are today," Sibal said.

"We are one because of our Constitution which reflects our diversity. Why is it that we have a Constitution like the one we have? It is because of that the Constitution is almost the replica of the 1935 Act. The whole concept of Parliament and the position of the Governor, these are all things we inherited from the British. So when you talk about the idea of India you must realise this is not something unique that we are thinking today but it is evolution of hundreds and thousands of years that has led this country to be what it is today," he said.

Having said that, the "challenge before us today is that do we embrace this diversity or erase it", he said, adding that is the conflict taking place in the present political system in our country.

"There is a political party in our country that seeks to erase diversity, but you cannot erase a historical fact. How can you erase diversity through a political dictat of a political party?" Sibal said.

The only political leitmotif that can take this country forward is the acceptance of our diversity and the assimilation of that diversity into what is called the idea of India that accepts that historical fact, Sibal said.

"The present establishment does not realise that erasing diversity is an anti-historical move and will lead to tension at the scenes of the Indian polity," he said.

"That is why while the idea of one nation is attractive but we are not one nation in that sense. We are an assimilation of cross fertilisation of millions of cultures. It is like a mosaic that falls into a pattern. It is that pattern that we have to embrace and that mosaic that makes that pattern, that we have to celebrate," Sibal said.

M P Veerendra Kumar, who passed away in May 2020, was an Indian politician, writer and journalist. He was a member of the 14th Lok Sabha.

He was also the chairman and managing director of the Malayalam daily Mathrubhumi.