Pluralist India

Pluralism is the Mantra of Maha Bharata

1947 was a landmark year. After a long struggle against British domination, two independent sovereign nation states appeared on the map of the world: Pakistan, a separate state for Indian Muslims, and India which grew as a polity through trials and triumphs in the decades of anti-colonial struggle and founded itself on the ideal of unity in diversity. Diversity of religious faiths, diversity of languages, of food cultures, of dresses and manners, of communities, of regional types and the list goes on. Pakistan was created for the advancement of Indian Muslims; India was formed for the advancement of every Indian regardless of religion, language, ethnicity, skin colour or race. India's mantra at its new and most modern birth, was pluralism. Pluralism is India's life mantra. The entire idea and practice of India is centred principally on pluralism.

It is pluralism that also calls for equality. Philosophy of pluralism, politics of democracy and democratic governance and aspiration towards economic equality or at least economic equal opportunity for all are the guiding forces of modern India that came into being in 1947.

Deba Prasad Ray, a diehard Congressman, who worked in his native West Bengal and in the corridors of power in India's capital, outlines in this book, independent India's journey in pluralism. In the recent decades the attack on India's pluralism from the Hindutva right has caused deep fissures in India's polyphonic polity. D P Ray and his fellow political travellers formed a platform named Pluralist India a few years ago. This book where Ray has sketched India's journey in pluralism is an excellent and lucid introduction to pluralist India. The author would urge all to unite for pluralist India. A passionate believer in pluralism, Ray would uphold the ideals of pluralist India at all costs.

Let us all celebrate diversity, let us pledge for an India that is diverse and great, an India that is pluralist, polyphonic and a Maha Bharata that is even greater than Bharat.

-Sunandan Roy Chowdhury