The folks in the ghettos

Let's get it: We are, what we were.  

To understand a community's culture in the present context, one also needs to get its' past, namely:

A) Ontological understanding - the way the culture came into being. 

B) Epistemological understanding - how the community in that culture learns. 

C) Anthropological understanding - how the community folks behave.  

Only the last is visible to outsiders.

In certain cultures, speaking as realistically as metaphorically, wherever the community members go in the world, they have a tendency to ghettoize. 

That is so, because the community is very identity centric. They strongly relate to people like themselves. So far, so good; nothing wrong with that. 

The problems occur in the subsequent steps. 

Knowing what exactly is the criteria for having a strong identity centricity, and why it takes precedence over all else, such that the community members need to permanently huddle together very closely, and emit non-welcoming signals to outsiders, would help. 

That can only be understood, if we get all the aspects of community's birth and growth. Namely, how that community came into being or the essence of its DNA, how it indoctrinates its young in the formative years and disseminates information & knowledge later. Finally, what & how it communicates and acts within and outside. 

Often, such identity centric folks can relate only with each other, believing that nobody understands them, and make little attempt to engage with the larger world outside their own, and so the community experiences perpetual insecurity or victimhood. As a consequence, they remain financially or ortherwise backward, incompatible to the larger society and the spirit of the times. 

With passage of time, that feeling of insecurity and the experience of the victimhood, no matter how large the group becomes, doesn't recede but gets exacerbated. 

These folks then seek comfort of their own, even when there's enough evidence that they have no need to feel insecure, and on the contrary, engaging outside their self-created narrow space could empower them on multi-dimensional levels.  

Because of the earliest indoctrination, and later education methodology, such folks will however be unwilling to assimilate and unwilling to move out of their ghetto. They can only transact within the community and are of little value to majority outside their community. 

Assimilation is defined as being rooted to your past while still being wedded to your future. 

It means that while you are proud of your identity, culture, and traditions, you are equally keen & willing to share the elements from there, and engage with others from varying backgrounds for mutual benefits to enrich the overall society. 

You pose no discomfort to the other, speaking feelingly. 

So, while others assimilate and move on, the identity centric communities remain stagnant and frozen in time. 

Unfortunately, those who are bothered by such communities indulge in a very surface level, and sanitized discussion, bypassing over the real issues mentioned above. 

That's half the problem. 

They however offer a moralist world view, a childish good-natured verdict, one without trail. It's an idealistic view,  one that's not derived any morals from the real world experiences unfolding before them, including global examples shouting out loud. 

They continue to quote the exception and so miss the root cause. 

As hyper moralists, they give verdicts to selves and others that they must see everyone equally and fairly. 

That's a Utopian fairytale, best suited in our personal imaginary realm, not the reality. 

To treat unequal people equally is itself unfair. 

So, the idea of diversity and inclusivity also is at best, an illusion.

We must enforce to offer equal opportunities, but not assume equal outcomes.  

Equal outcomes from different people is not possible. 

Two fruits on the same tree aren't equal, even when they were recipient of the same amount of sun, water, and minerals. 

We should pursue diversity, not automatic inclusivity. 

Based on the outcome that the diverse groups produce, we can decide whom to include. In fact it happens by the law of natural selection. 

By logic, we can include those that enrich us and our environment and not those that want to use our value based institutions to only secure their exclusivity and live happily thereafter in their ghettos to our detriment. 

Doing just that would be equally fair. 

India's Foreign Policy & the Modi Doctrine

It is unfortunate that many Indians haven't understood their own national foreign policy.

That's also an irony, as perhaps it is one of the very few policies that haz remained consistent since the time of independence.

The Nehruvian thought of non-alignment haz been adhered to, irrespective of the dispensation in power in New Delhi.

Modi haz simply given impetus to it, namely:

A) He's reframed that value-based belief from being equi-distant to equi-proximate with all, to the maximum practical possibility. 

2) He's put that belief into firm action, and so embraced Washington & Moscow, Tehran & Riyadh, and Tel Aviv & Ramallah, making him perhaps the world's first & only person, dead or alive, to have achieved that distinction of hugging leaders from each of the warring-in-cold pairs.

One should note that he's as much at the high table in the North as connected with the Global South.

3) Finally, hiz unique characteristic is that as the first Indian leader to be born post-independence, he haz traveled the world, sans any hangover or inkling of colonial past. In fact, as a true Bhartiya, he haz unabashedly engaged the diaspora and used India's soft power to the brim. He is known to have demanded from hiz hosts the return of stolen from India ancient idols, even as he gifts them unique artifacts from across India, made by our artisans today.

To hiz distinction, he haz remained undefeated & steadfast since May 2014, while all hiz counterparts across the world are seen playing musical chairs. Irrespective of who comes to power and from which party, a Modi-meet is seen to be on every global leader's to-do list. Modi haz been conferred more highest civilian national awards in foreign lands than any other contemporary leader.

It became a great vantage point for India, as, notwithstanding the global pandemic, or the Ukraine war, or instability in the global order, most national capitals consider India as a reliable friend. 

India, under Modi's watch rose on the GDP ranks from #11 to #4 (soon to be #3) with one of the best macroeconomic performances in the world. 

The last G20 summit under Modi's India turned out to be a showpiece for the world, achieving what even the UN had not.

At the G20, a body of the most powerful & wealth controling nations, India managed to bring the otherwise disagreeing America, Russia, and China to converge on a joint communique, including bringing the poor African Union on board.

India haz begun to exert influence & move the global commodity markets.

Its growing military power, financial muscle, and technological prowess are worthy of envy for many.

Whether in the Western or Eastern hemisphere, she is well represented in every major body, including the QUAD & BRICS, both of which are opposing forces. The G20, I2U2, and the G7, to which India is a permanent invitee, are the other names worthy of mention. All these bodies are now suddenly witnessing a vociferous contribution by India.

Not being on the permanent member list at the UN as that bloated body fails to reform, is not India's embarrassment, but the UN's.

Under Modi's leadership, India is expanding its global footprint through various bilateral agreements, including trade in regional currencies. 

It is he who had begun to alter, if not change, the global narrative, and not the ever-volatile Trump. On the contrary, America under Trump is seen isolating itself.

All thiz haz clearly generated great interest about India across the world 

So, what is India's unique serving proposition?

Let's get one thing clear - India haz no enemies, not even Pakistan. She works with whosoever satisfies the security and needs of her people.

India doesn't dominate. In fact, she is famous for being the first responder to the distress call from any corner of the world. While the rich world hoarded vaccines to make a quick buck during the global pandemic, India indulged in vaccine diplomacy by playing the savior for the smallest and the poorest nations of the world.

India sure haz her agenda for peace.

Having said that, she is not naïve. 

India is a forward moving modern nation and simultaneously a wise ancient civilization. History haz taught her well of the wicked ways of the mean world. These memories have been revived under the Modi regime, so, a robust defense program is under implementation. 

India is no longer a soft state; she's a sharp power, writing her own story. 

If anyone haz an alternative agenda for her, then she mitigates and responds accordingly, putting the adversary in its place.

The calibrated Operation Sindoor, is a ripe example. It waz started, courtesy the damn Pakis' who provoked through a cowardly terror act, and so we responded with force, but when the decimated other side halted firing, we too instantly stopped our generous selves from continuing the war. 

Unprovoked, the new government of Maldives postured against India, favoring the Chinese. Knowing that the island economy relies on Indian tourists, Modi gestured Indians to visit Lakshadweep instead. They instantly realized their folly and fell in line. India too reciprocated friendship. 

The same is true with Turkey. They had no business to support the damn Pakis. We resumed relations with them but only after responding in kind, namely supporting their adversary, Armenia, and reporting to the Turks that they bloody well fall within our missile range.

We had already begun normalizing relations with China after they withdrew their troops in October, restoring the status quo. Our leaders, including Rajnath Singh, S. Jaishankar, and Ajit Doval, were in touch with them since the incursions.

The correct way to look at all thiz is that at times, some lose their minds and walk out, but India keeps the door ajar. Upon regaining conscience and scruples, they all reenter our good graces.

Enjoy the ride; you're sitting atop an unshackled wise elephant that marches on.

Bolo Bharat Mata Ki … Jai Ok Please!

 

 

English Vinglish

The language wars in India are so sad. 

Most of us don't realize the gravity of the situation we're dealing with. 

Words are energy pellets. 

Words can be translated but not the connotations they carry. 

The connotations also give rise to both imagination and emotions. If language is the vehicle of expression, the denotation & connotation combined are potent enough to change the conscience & the direction of the travellers in that vehicle. 

The honerable Home Minister Amit Shah recently said, "Language is not just the medium of communication, in it is also the soul of the nation. Our roots, traditions, history and culture, cannot move forward separately from the Indian languages. We must keep our languages alive and also enrich them."

The gap between the thought and speech is an impairment. 

While we can't give up English due to its global spread arising out of the British imperialism in the past, considering that we are an ancient civilization, there needn't be a sense of pride in the language of the oppressor. 

In the Be-Know-Do sequence, let's not forget our Beingness.

We must not turn anti-English, but we can surely attempt to be non-English.  

It means, English can be our language for the sake of easy of transaction, not thought. That still allows us to be as good in English as anyone else in the world. 

Today's zero-summing is hurting us. 

A lot of our ills today are due to the impact of the infamous Macaulay education system. 

It was a system where one was made to feel that English-ness was the only ticket for escaping poverty, no matter how alien the language was to the Indian way of life. 

Post independence, we continued it as a mandatory requirement for higher education, not mindful of the employ-ability for almost all of the population. 

Even today, after 75 years of independence, only around 11% speak English as their first language of choice. 

What's worse is that we look down upon those who don't speak good English and hold in awe those who do, especially if it carries an American accent.

Ironically, in words of none other than Rahul Gandhi, "The escape from poverty in India became more difficult than the escape velocity of Jupiter!"

Interestingly, the Chinese have not just translated but even sinicized a lot of foreign works, including the Gita, Bible, & Koran. 

I believe that if an Indian Muslim student read her religious texts in an official Sanskritized version, i.e., in the vernacular language of her choice, be it Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, etc., she & her faith would be well served.

Currently, she risks being manipulated as she can't understand Arabic, and so is at the mercy of the middlemen. I guess she is somewhat shackled simply because she learns per the translators' vested interests and follows his agenda and not what the text prescribes.

Communication is the key to being upward bound. 

In that, the first rule of effective communication is that your language should be aligned with the language in which your listener is having an internal dialogue. So, if Indians speak in English to an English man, it's all well, good, and understood. 

Both's proficiency, if matching, adds to the effectiveness. 

The distinction that comes to the fore is that between our wealth and wellbeing. 

With English, one can get wealthy a wee bit more easily in India, even when very few speak it, and that is our peculiarity worthy of being ashamed of. 

It doesn't mean others can't be rich. The issue is, some of us are wealthy just because we speak in English. 

When one can't associate with the masses and vice versa because you are somewhat "foreign" to them & they to the you, your psychological well-being is that much compromised. 

Nehru's 'tryst with  destiny' speech, being in English, remained a speech writer’s joy as almost all Indians at the time couldn't understand the one who delivered it, and vice versa. 

Modi is considered as one of the best communicator. 

It is time that we get it that Modi's 'global leader' status is not because he speaks in English. 

It is, because he thinks in "Indian" and therefore as an Indian PM and representative of his country, he can speak his mind with confidence. 

That confidence comes with being at ease with his origin even in the international arena.

In the final reckoning, strength recognizes strength.

Sadly, within India, his speeches in Hindi are well understood by about half of the Indian population!

Dharmic Bharat

Those who seek inspiration from a Western (or the Islamic or Communist) model and use their lens to define Bharat don't understand what this land and its people are all about. 

That includes many Indians who have only been under the influence of the education system as left behind by the erstwhile colonists (including the invaders). Colonists are gone, but coloniality remains. 

They rely on Western ideas of separating faith from state, thereby overlooking the uniqueness of our land, its people, and their idea of their Being.

To make a distinction between Hinduism and Bharat is to discriminate one against the other and do injustice to both.

Hindus and Bharat aren't separate entities. They are not even joined at the hip or soldered together.

In the Indian psyche, Bharat without the Hindus or the Hindus without Bhartiyata can't exist.

The sari-clad imagery of Bharat Mata (Mother-India), which resembles powerful Hindu Goddesses, bears the fact.

In fact, the word Hindu, which is not mentioned in any scriptures, comes from Hindustan, not the other way around. 

The word Hindustan was coined by those who lived outside Bharat to describe the geographic significance of the landmass. Hindustan is the approximate region between Him-paravat (now the Himalayan mountains) & Indu-mahasagar (now the Indian Ocean). That area is what they called Hindustan, and the people living there as the Hindus. 

Those people on the west of ancient Bharat recognized that in the form of faith existing in Hindustan, all and any belief or practice, including none at all, is accepted, i.e., if one is seeking peace, redemption, or salvation. 

The only fundamental here - is that there's none. 

Thus, the narrow singular steadfast concepts of The God, The Holy Book, The Holy Day, etc., do not exist here. There are no claimants, each is a seeker - based on his or her method or understanding. 

It is this philosophy which gave rise to Bhartiata or "Cultural Secularism," one which allowed the Hindus to accept the Jews, fleeing from religious persecution and to shelter them; it allowed for the making of one of the earliest mosques in the world i.e., Cheraman Masjid by a Hindu king for the convenience of his Muslim visitors; it allowed for the Ezharappallikal Churches in the first century within the Brahmin community at Malabar Coast; it allowed for a Hindu king to resettle the Parsis who were displaced from Persia including building a fire temple for them and one in which the king himself or his subjects agreed not to enter as requested by the Parsi immigrants.

All this much before a written Western-influenced constitution found its roots here. 

This ancient, open, and wise "Cultural Secularism" is an integral part of the Hindu psyche and governs the Hindu mindset. The current constitution that governs India, as derived by copying the Western concept of constitution, is somewhat incompatible with India's innate thought. 

In India, a secular government must embrace Dharma and not avoid it. 

In fact, the actual name of the practices of the people of Hindustan is Sanatana Dharma, meaning a timeless principled duty.

This gives the people of the land a collective sense of Beingness that is distinct and unique from the rest of the world.

Consider this: Both the Pakistani and Indian sides have Punjabis, and the Bangladeshi and Indian sides have Bengalis. Although the language and many practices of both may overlap, the Beingness differs, and therefore, the Purpose, too. 

The distinction between "matra bhumi" (or only a piece of land) and "matru bhumi" (the motherland) came to the fore, and so, as demanded by their Islamic leaders, the partitions were inevitable. 

Had they accepted the land with reverence and sacredness, irrespective of their religion, they would have found enough cultural compatibility with those practicing Sanatana Dharma.

Since Dharmic people do not have fundamentals, as in structured "religion," there is no scope for "othering" those whose practices differ. 

One needn't be born a Hindu; one can choose to live as one or even abandon the religious or ritualistic aspects around it. 

Obviously, then, in the conscience of Hindus, concepts such as blasphemy, heresy, apostasy & punishment thereof are alien. Thus, there has never been a conflict between the State and religion, nor have there been "holy wars" here, as in the West. 

How can there be a conflict when it is not even a religion in the word's true meaning? 

If it is anything, it is a way of life - to each their own!

However, the idea of the motherland above everything else is a must and non-negotiable.

Prime Minister Modi's success has been in the simple fact that he has managed to harness that Beingness and given it a solid purpose. He refused to be anyone else but a Dharmic Indian. 

Bharat is innately Dharmic and, therefore, panth nirpeksh, or path neutral. In other words, the pluralism of the polytheistic way of living is fully compatible with the monotheistic religions. The vice versa should also be true.

In essence, a Dharmic Christian, Dharmic Muslim, or Dharmic Atheist can also be rooted in our past and wedded to our collective future of serving the motherland with no conflict. 

Any person can practice any religion or none at all and still be a Hindustani simultaneously.

It is, therefore, possible for all to remain in service of this sacred land and add sweetness, like the example of the 'sugar-in-the-milk' that the wise Parsis have demonstrated after leaving Persia and becoming Indian. 

The maturity of the respective religious shepherds would be in directing their flock to harness the spirit that one's religion can change or be abandoned. Still, the core tenets of one's culture needn't. 

In conclusion, the Indian civilizational culture, values, and ethos, which give this nation its collective mindset and conscience, lie beyond the ambit of any legislation. It is that which truly governs lifestyle at the conscious and unconscious levels, all of which existed for several millennia before the constitution was written.

The prosperity of any minority depends on consciously remaining anchored in ancient India's Civilizational Ethos, which gives it its cultural secularism, and on remaining aligned to an Interdependent common future that is in tandem with service to the motherland. 

No group should claim exclusivity and ask others to accommodate them in a manner that inconveniences most others. 

It then follows from universal commonsense, and applicable worldwide, that the real security of any minority is in the goodwill of the majority, not the law. 

Every group must assimilate; no one should self-isolate themselves.

May the Gods bless Bharat and her Dharma 🙏 

The Marriage Mantra

Ours is the only living culture where even Gods get married. 

The Goddesses have intrinsic qualities that are indispensable for Gods and so the interdependent equation.

So, it's a balance, the essence of being a complimentary couple. 

That message serves us in our mortal world, to the married couples, the families & therefore the larger humanity. 

Our scriptures have more stories with interpretive messages than what any single person can possibly comprehend. 

These stories are the essence of our cultural pluralism. That spouse is for eternal, including in reincarnated lives, is also the powerful message emanating from the mythological stories. 

There isn't even a word for 'divorce' in any of our hundreds of native languages. 

Marriage to a Hindu is a civilizational duty. 

In the Hindu's cognition, on getting married, he or she instantly inherits the cultural heritage and has the responsibility to pass on the legacy through children by living by the civilizational ethos. 

And so, ours is the only ancient civilization that continues to survive and thrive.  

Only those who are seduced by the illusion of the so called modern society have abandoned our ancient culture or have become excessively Western, underestimate the significance of marriage. 

They then come to a conclusion that there's only one life, and so attempt to make their marriage work by controlling their spouse using binary logic, or abdicate their responsibilities by becoming indifferent to the other's need, and eventually fail. 

They actually failed to learn and accept that vagaries within a married life are nothing more than Karmic offerings & outcomes.  

Perhaps such people rationalize that it's better to be miserably lonely than remain unhappily married. Not having invested in emotional bonding, the relationship feels like a bondage. 

So, while the Indian marriages work, the innately Abrahamic cultured nations are seen struggling to retain the family structure.

Having said that, the gold, glitter, glitz & glam in rich urban households during the wedding season get the media attention and gossip traction.

We too are forgetting what marriage in our culture is about. 

We have begun to associate the cluster of invented events as marriage. 

No; marriage is not a party. Marriage is also not just a cohabitation. One dosen't share only half the bed; one builds on the dreams together with the significant other. 

Marriage is sacrament where the time is auspicious, ritualistic, presided by a pundit, with the divinity as a witness, as symbolized by fire. 

There is no such thing as a poor marriage. It can be as huge or small as one wants. 

Of significance is that, typically, it is attended by close family members and can be simple. 

Let us not mistake marriage with the pre-or-post wedding events tamasha.

Let's keep it sacred. 

Marriage is not a happy ending for a couple in love. It is the beginning of a love story. 

Burry That Coloniality

Wherever the British have ruled, they have attempted to reduce the locals & force fit all practices into their binary model, i.e., practices can be classified as religious or secular. Period. 

The reality is that Hinduism is not a religion but a philosophy. It does not come from any single doctrine; it is nonprescriptive.

It is all about the sole, birth, rebirth, consciousness, human nature, and its relationship with nature, including the entire universe. Here, the God & all creations of God are merged, i.e., are one & the same.

The colonizers failed to comprehend that Hinduism does not have the narrow, singular, steadfast concepts of God, the Holy Place, the Holy Book, the Holy Day, etc., that are the essence of monotheistic religions. 

That there is no authority or claimants to methods for salvation among the Hindus and that each is a seeker, based on his or her method or understanding, should have been intriguing to any visitor. 

In the conscience of such Hindus, concepts like blasphemy, heresy, apostasy & punishment thereof are alien. 

This completely perplexed the British. 

In ancient India, there was no conflict between the Hindus & other faiths until other faiths took it upon themselves to "rescue" the Hindus through conversion by inducements or force. 

There was no conflict between the State & the Hindu faith, nor had there been any "holy wars" here, all of which have happened in the West.

It should have left the British wonder-struck. 

But what the mind cannot distinguish, the eye can't see. 

To them, the heathen had to be rescued. 

The colonists, instead of appreciating the plurality in the Hindu faith, saw that there was no standardized practice of worship.

That meant an opportunity to exploit, and they did and how!

They deemed that almost everything outside the four walls of the Hindu temples could be considered secular and subject to law and state meddling. So, worship of God inside the temple is in the domain of the faithful but the prasad, loosely translated as God's graceful food offering/blessing, can be forced to be contracted by the state to the non faithful, but to be consumed by the faithful. 

Go figure!

Hinduism doesn't begin & end inside the temple; it is a way of life. In fact temples are said to be in existence since only 3,000 years. History of Hindus is much older than that. 

Even the temple complex was hardly a place of just worship. It was a central activity place with a large complex for community gatherings. Dwellers, craftsmen, and artists, as well as commercial activities, took place around there.

Beautiful architectural design & engineering marvels were its USP. 

For the British, God was separated from his creation, so religious & secular partition was a must. 

For the Hindus, God is omnipresent. 

The British began to fix what was not broken. 

The British ruled for almost 200 long years !

During that period, they not only captured the land but also colonized the minds of the people of Bharat through their education. 

They took a few into the Christian fold through active proselytizing & a few more through education, by what is known as "Macaulayism."

In "Baron" Macaulay's own words:

“We must do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect.”

It was an education system to unleashed disdain for all things native or indigenous of Bharat, be it their language, knowledge, beliefs, customs, culture, clothes, faith & practices.  

They showed that all that was good was theirs, and all that was bad was due to the locals' own doing, including their culture. 

Coloniality refers to long-standing patterns of power that emerged due to the colonialists but that define culture, intersubjective relations, and knowledge production well beyond the strict limits of colonial administration. 

Thus, coloniality survives colonial rule, where people believe all things of the West are wonderful & wise.

Much wealth and knowledge was looted from here. To make blatant of what was obvious, they even stole the word 'loot' and appropriated it into the English language!

Having been influenced by that kind of agenda-driven, indoctrinating education, the people of Bharat began to compromise and sacrifice their core values. 

That coloniality never left us. Englishness became our ticket to prosperity. 

Some of us with little talent or skill are still wealthy simply because we speak good English, the language of the oppressor, that bulk of our countrymen don't understand. 

That's a tragedy, isn't it, because language is the vehicle of expression, but in language is entwined the inseparable emotions and imagination and so it tells one where the vehicle leads one to. 

Well, much of that gets lost in translation. 

As a reference to context, take the word Dharma as an example. Dharma has no translation in English. It can be explained as the innate law or the principled duty, but is translated as religion. 

Get the irony, religion is foreign to the Indian. 

Modi the Unifier

The Liberals have no idea how & from where did this sudden Hindu resurrection occur & hit them so hard. 

Well, Hinduism waz never dead, had just gone a bit dormant, and awaiting for an opportune moment to rise again. 

And then Modi did his bit.

The clarion call waz given on his first trip to Varanasi, when he had said "Mai na aaya hoon, na mujhe kisi ne bheja hai. Maa Ganga ne mujhe bulaya hai !"

He held his hands in a prayer, bowed & took a dip.

And when he resurfaced & rose, a billion faithful hopefuls knew their time has come. The Hindu culture's renaissance was round the corner. 

Ten years on, Modi has not only injected life to Hinduism, but did it with the all the pomp & prayer that this tryst with destiny demanded.

He single handedly rejuvenated the faith with an energetic zeal across the nation, the world included. 

But weren't the Hindus a divided lot - by caste, language,  practice? How so suddenly did they come together screaming 'Jai Shri Ram' in a chorus?

Well, for most part, the Bharat bhakt creed converges on the acceptance of Bharat Mata as their reason of being.

To them, Bharat Mata represents both, the land mass & the all-encompassing Hindu faith, notwithstanding the many differences. 

She can be understood in the geographical sense - land between the Him-parvat (Himalayas) & the Indu-sagar (Indian ocean), thus representing the Hindu.

And then the Hindu worships the sun, sky, rivers, ocean, mountain, trees & shrubs found here on this land,  making it sacred. 

On an interesting spiritual sense, while ancient Bharat waz having many rulers & kingdoms, the pilgrims of the land had unlimited "visa-less" travel permits across the many borders, to visit places of worship or for special festivals like say the religious melas since time immemorial.

Throughout history, the religious prayers, hymns, songs, stories & poems evoked Bharat's total or akhand landscape with a spiritual sense and mentioned the numerous rivers, mountains including spiritual seers & scholars.

It mattered not in which kingdom the author lived or in which region were the natural landscapes or sages.

This in itself was a unifying geographical connect, including an embedded spiritual cum patriotic calling upon the people.

This makes Bharat and its people the most unique in the world. No wonder then, while empires, rulers & governments have all come and gone, Bharat's Hindu centric civilization or the Sanatana Dharma (literally meaning a way of life with no end) is the oldest surviving one. 

Today's modern Hindians (Hindu & Indians) are the obvious progeny of those folks from different regions, but we know that they converged on an idea that this is a sacred land. By any imagination, it is not a zero-sum game at all, so, if the Christians & Muslims accept that they are converts, they shouldn't have any problem in accepting the idea either. 

Modi has simply connected the people with their ancestral roots.

In a discordant & divided world, Bharat stands out.

After Sardar Vallabhai Patel, who united Bharat physically, Modi has now done the same emotionally.

Bolo Bharat Mata Ki ... Jai Okay Please 🙏 🇮🇳