Diversity is the key idea in science, business, arts, literature and as well as cultures. On every scale, at every level and from every perspective, we find an amazing diversity in life, diversity in flora and fauna, diversity of races and cultures, diversity of faiths and practices and diversity of personal life styles and cultural preferences, the idea of pluralism tries to accommodate the reality of this divergent, multifaceted amazing kaleidoscope.
I’m fully aware that in all religious traditions, in all major strands of political thoughts, in every region’s ethos, there is some clear or explicit recognition of this fact. Coming from an Islamic background, as I do. I see an affirmation of the Holy Quran’s observation that “ Had God wanted so He would have created everybody alike as adherents of a single religion”. That means God wanted a plural world, a multi-colored world instead of a monochromatic one. If we need religious sanction for forging a multi-cultural world, this should suffice. I’m sure all major and minor religious traditions must have something of this sort.
On a practical plane, things are more complicated. They need a more hard-nosed, practical approach to be sorted out. What kind social, economic and political structure and what kind of a bureaucracy would be needed accommodate this diversity and to make flourish and nurture? Questions like this are pertinent today. We have an idea of the kind of struggle that is required to attain this goal from gigantic efforts being made in the preservation of diversity of species of plants and animals.
Political structures that suit the goal of promotion of multi-culturalism and pluralism, have to be basically democratic and secular. By being democratic we ensure that nobody is excluded because of his/her social and economic status, race or gender and by being secular we make sure that somebody’s religion does not become his/her undoing.
Federalism is another tool for accommodating regional and ethnic diversities. Luckily, we have a political setup which is both democratic and secular and federal too.
We have lot of mechanisms in place that guarantee the working of this arrangement on executive, legislative and judicial Levels as well as on the levels of statutory organizations and civil bodies. Earlier, we had American model of a melting pot which envisaged all kinds of people and all kinds of cultures mixed together in an American personality and an “ All American” world view.
We are talking more often of a salad bowl model where the white radish, the red carrot, the pinkish onion and the blood red beet-root pieces are placed along with green salad leaves and bit hues of lemon. All of them retain their color, texture and taste.
They are placed together in a bowl where their identity is recognized, but they are of a larger scheme of things, and components of a single salad preparation.
Last but not least, we are free to have own recipes, but we have to stick to the rich experience of diversity and shun all monochromatic ideas in favor of a full-bodied, multi-textured idea of India…
