Today, social communities within a number of the states of the Indian Union harbor secessionist notions and others are calling for a new relationship between the Centre and the regions.
We would be much more at peace with ourselves, politically speaking, if we frankly accepted the fact that we are not a nation but a civilization.
Our survival as a unified polity shall also call for a liberal interpretation of the pluralist moral systems which endowed our society, in the past, with a catholicity and resilience rare in the history of humankind.
Yet the crowning arch of such an edifice can only be provided by redefining ourselves as a civilization-state. For such a redefinition fully captures, no less than it concretely articulates, our historical identity. More to the point, it provides our leaders with the freedom of man oeuvre so necessary to the business of drawing the constituents of our diverse society into a creative political union. (Times of India Aug 26)
