Vice President’s addresses 4th Convocation of Vardhaman Mahaveer Open University, Kota
	15:20 IST

The Vice President of India Shri Mohd. Hamid Ansari addressed the 4th Convocation of “Vardhaman Mahaveer Open University, Kota” on the theme: ‘Accommodation of Diversity: The Indian Practice and the Global Debate’ at Kota, Rajasthan today. Following is the text of his Convocation address on the occasion: “I am happy to be in Kota, in a place of history, in an institution of higher learning where the enthusiasm of the youth interacts with the experience of the elderly. I thank his Excellency the Governor of Rajasthan for giving me the opportunity of addressing your annual Convocation. . I join the people of Jaipur and Rajasthan in their grief.  I also join them in their resolve to fight mischief in all its manifestations. It is indeed a joyous occasion for the University, particularly as it is honouring its founder Vice Chancellor, Prof. V. R. Mehta, with an honoris causa. This is a fitting recognition of his immense contribution as an eminent educationist and a noted political theorist.    A university is a playground of ideas, a place where the human mind is allowed to roam freely to examine critically the achievements of the past, the endeavours of the present and the prospects of the future. It is a platform for free thinking. For this reason, it is critical to the mental good health of a people.  Every free and healthy society must, therefore, allow this free play to its universities. By the same logic, places of higher learning have an obligation to discharge this responsibility in full measure. An ancient philosopher is credited with the remark that you cannot step in the same river twice. We can say the same about the world of today. The pace of change is unbelievable.  We cannot re-live the past, not even yesterday.  We can anticipate the future, but must do it in the knowledge that we have often been wrong, both with regard to human affairs and in relation to technological change. The human mind, given to reflection on changes in human condition, is thus unavoidably late on the scene. This reflection, nevertheless, is invaluable.  We in India live in an ancient land, in a society enriched by time and experience, amidst fellow citizens who are united in their commitment to India and Indian-ness. But as Sunil Khilnani has noted: “There was one very important feature of the project of defining Indianness....The state did not try to impose a uniform definition of a national culture, it did not molest local loyalties – although it did frequently try to persuade such loyalties to adopt wider horizons. It respected the element of choice – for religions, regions, languages and above all for individuals – in deciding the issue of how to be an Indian. And it recognised that its citizens might choose to maintain simultaneous allegiances to a variety of things: nation, region, religion, language – such loyalties were not seen as necessarily competitive or exclusive identities.”    Accommodation of diversity is thus a civilisational heritage of our societal evolution and survival over centuries and enshrined by the conscious choice of the Indian people as a distinctive aspect of the Indian state. A standardized image of an Indian cannot be constructed; if presented, it is partial, incomplete, misleading.  Our long history and rich experience has blessed us with the intellectual depth and practical tools of moulding our diversity into an integrated whole that is richer than its parts.  The mantra for our professed creed is a plural society, a democratic polity, a secular state structure. Our endeavour, in practical terms, is to draw an inclusive circle so that none is excluded.  The plurality of our society is a fact of life. Democracy and secularism are the results of conscious decisions taken by the People of India and enshrined in the Constitution. The objective was to create a structure of equality and justice for all and allow the plurality to flourish within it.  Three questions are often posed to us. -                      How far have we succeeded? -                      What remains to be done?       -     How can others benefit from our experience?  In six decades of independent existence we have consolidated our physical integrity, sustained and deepened democratic structures, widened the circle of inclusiveness, and taken meaningful steps towards social justice. Our economic, scientific and technological development is note worthy. The strength and unity of our market is admired and envied. On the other hand caste, region, language and religion continue to dilute our national cohesion; an Indian continues to be singled out in some part of India or the other for differentiated, often derogatory, treatment on one or more of these grounds. Some have difficulty in accepting that justice and meaningful equality necessitates affirmative action. Some are reluctant to concede that a single citizenship entitles us to move, reside and work freely within the boundaries of India and without extra-legal hindrances. Some often forget, despite our glorious heritage in spirituality, that faith is a matter of individual choice dictated by conscience and not subject to overt or covert state or social regulation. Some are failing to invest the institutions of democracy with functional efficacy and seem oblivious to public disenchantment with this trend.   In sum, each of the core values of pluralism, democracy and secularism are perceived to be under siege and need to be rejuvenated.   There is a basic difficulty about our understanding of pluralism. It is a societal reality, not a creation of the state. One question however does arise: have we invested enough in strengthening and deepening the concept of pluralism so that it is embedded in our consciousness? Experience shows that:  Pluralism involves energetic engagement with diversity; Pluralism is not just tolerance but the active seeking of understanding across lines of difference; Pluralism is not relativism but the encounter of commitments, of holding our deepest differences not in isolation but in relationship to one another; Pluralism is based on dialogue, of speaking and listening in a process that reveals both common understanding and real differences.  The proper pursuit of pluralism therefore necessitates a continuous inter-community, inter-faith and cross-cultural dialogue aimed at understanding and accommodating diversity. It has deep roots in our cultural history but is not being pushed with sufficient vigour by our society and polity today.  Such a dialogue is essential to promote an atmosphere of integration in which persons of different ethnic or religious groups come together in an equal association of a common political community to promote common values.  Integration is freely undertaken; it is very different from assimilation that involves absorption and loss of identity and is sought to be achieved through covert or overt coercion.   We are familiar with the implications of this distinction. Throughout our history, we have noted that identities have been built on a series of inclusions and exclusions reflective of ground realities. The challenge has been to maintain a balance in favour of inclusions.  The effort has been successful because identities do not remain in watertight compartments and because our every day life has necessitated a networking of identities. In the light of this experience, the effort to narrow the circle is foolhardy. It is nevertheless there and must therefore be taken note of, and countered. The significance of sustaining and strengthening the plural fabric cannot be overstated for the simple reason that it constitutes the end product of centuries of societal evolution, the bedrock of the state structure and, in the final analysis, of national security.      No society in the world is homogenous. No society is static. We are familiar with the implications of urbanisation. The question of accommodating identity and pluralism has been faced by others also, more specifically in the context of globalisation which brings forth a paradox: that while traditional points of reference disappear, a passionate affirmation of narrow or sectional identities is awakened often leading to virtual self-exclusion.  It would be useful to see how other societies have dealt with the question of accommodating or managing diversity. For our purpose today, the prime examples are in the Western world, principally reflected in the experience of the United States, some member states of the European Union, and Canada. The principal difference is that diversity in India is in situ, whereas in the West, diversity and the need to accommodate it stems primarily from immigration.  It is a different issue that when it comes to accommodating indigenous diversity as in the case of Aboriginal issues, most Western countries have had a poor record. Amends continue to be made on this count, and the apology of the Australian Prime Minister is one such example.     In some of these, the starting point was the concept of mono-culture, in others the ‘melting pot’ or ‘multiculturalism’.  The first presupposes a homogenous nation-state. An eminent scholar has called it ‘a pipedream’ since culturally homogenous populations are a rarity in a modern state. Any attempt to attain it is effectively hampered by globalisation and the mobility of people. The other end of this exclusivist paradigm is represented by the ‘melting pot’ approach premised on cultural assimilation of new arrivals over a period of time. This was ardently advocated in the United States in an earlier period when the immigrants were principally from Europe and African-Americans and American Indians were excluded from the ambit of civic rights.  The concept of multiculturalism took shape in the second half of the 20th century in the United States and Canada (and to a lesser extent in Australia). It allowed immigrants to express their ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic identities and obliged all public institutions, through legislation, to accommodate such identities and contribute to the final product.  The situation in the European Union varies considerably. It has developed supra-national regional governance structures that accommodate the diversity of state structures, languages, religions, ethnicities and legal systems. Yet, for all the brilliance of its normative legal and rights structures, the situation has deteriorated in vast areas of the Union in recent years on account of the terrorism debate.    Many sections of opinion in Western societies have succumbed to the temptation of associating terrorist acts with people of a religious affiliation or immigrant background, forgetting their own, and global, experience in recent decades at different places and points of time. Record shows that adherents of all faiths, without exception, have at some time or other been guilty in the matter and that faith-specific analysis of acts of terrorism is inadequate, misleading and harmful to social cohesion and political stability.  These reactions also bring out the limitations of the immigrant multicultural model created through state intervention. The ability of the multicultural model to sustain itself in times of pressure has come into question.   The Indian approach needs to be assessed in the context of the global experience. Unlike the countries of the West, the Indian social structure and its demographic mix is not of recent origin. This was aptly expressed half a century ago by Humayun Kabir and I can do no better than to recall his words:  ‘From immemorial times, India has been the meeting place of the conflicting races and civilisations. From immemorial times, she has tried to achieve a unity for the heterogeneous elements, which makes up the totality of her life. Hers is perhaps the oldest civilisation with an uninterrupted history. Most of her contemporaries have ceased to exist. She has not only survived but also maintained and developed a continuous culture… Whence this vitality that overcomes destruction and death? The story of India’s culture unravels the secret of that vitality and that wisdom. It is a story of unity and synthesis, of reconciliation and development, of a perfect fusion of old traditions and new values’.       This synthesising ethos is a living reality and is variously described as ‘unity in diversity’, ‘pluralism and tolerance’, ‘living together separately’, ‘salad bowl’, ‘thali’ etc. In the absence of a constitutional definition of secularism, this has also led us to understand secularism as sarva dharma samabhava (equal respect to all religions). Our Judiciary has clarified it to mean -  a) non-discrimination on grounds of religion; b) the State shall have no religion of its own; and c) all persons shall be equally entitled to the freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practice and propagate religion. The Constitution lends it a supportive framework of justice and equality. Public opinion sustains it in varying measure; so does popular culture and everyday economic activity all over the country.  Despite this, serious aberrations have surfaced from time to time. There have been occasions when individuals failed, when agents of the state were negligent or complicit, when the state itself faltered. Jawaharlal Nehru had anticipated such failures and cautioned against it in October 1947: ‘If we fail, we shall have a festering sore, which will eventually poison the whole body politic and probably destroy it’.     The failures are often systemic and necessitate revisiting the concept to lend it greater vigour. This can be ensured by developing, and implementing, a commitment to egalitarian and equalitarian pluralism. The sarva dharma samabhava should intersect, in words and in spirit, with the constitutional principles of non-discrimination, the right freely to profess, practice and propagate religion and of the State having no religion of its own. A few practical measures would assist the process:  Consider community disharmony a threat to national security and deal with it in the same manner as other such threats; Be uncompromising in the implementation of laws and regulations. Educate all sections of the public, and particularly the youth and students, about the uniqueness of our structure and the benefits flowing out of it; and Develop a civil society awareness to pursue relentlessly cases of state failure or of individuals and groups who may be culprits.   Some of you may have come across in your readings Edmund Burke’s remark that ‘the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing’. As citizens, therefore, each one of you has a duty to participate in strengthening this important aspect of our structure of governance.  I conclude by felicitating Prof. V. R. Mehta and all those who have earned their degrees today. I wish them all success in the days ahead”.    SK/BS