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please detail about unity in diversity

India is a land of diversities woven together as a complex culture. It has been characterized as an indigenous civilization. The country is second only to China in terms of its population size. In geographical spread, it is seventh in the world. It measures 3,214 km from North to South between latitudes 8°4′ and 37°6′ North, and 2,933 km from East to West between longitudes 68° 7′ and 97°25′ east.

The mainland covers an area of 3.28 million sq km. Such a vast territory is rightly called a subcontinent as it juts away from the Asian mainland into the Indian Ocean. Bounded by the Himalayas in the North, stretching southward, it forms a peninsula surrounded by the Arabian Sea in the West, the Bay of Bengal in the East, and the Indian Ocean in the South.

A country of such a distinct geographical identity and vastness is characterized by varied topography and different climatic conditions. The Himalayan ranges separate the country from its Northern neighbours, namely Nepal, China, Bangladesh, and Bhutan. The Eastern mountain ranges demarcate its boundary with Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. In the North-West, India has a common border with Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Palk Strait and the Gulf of Mannar separate Sri Lanka from India. The archipelago state of the Maldives is also a close neighbour. The Indian Territory also covers Lakshadweep (earlier known as the Laccadiv and Minicoy Islands) in the Arabian Sea and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal.

India has a land frontier of about 15,200 km and a coastline, including those of its islands, of 7,516.6 km. Of India’s land frontier, the longest stretch is the border with China – roughly 3,800 km from West to East, across difficult mountain ranges.

Indian society got redefined in August 1947, when the country attained its freedom from British colonial rule. It was also partitioned then with the creation of Pakistan, with a wing each in the Western and Eastern parts, separated from each other by nearly 1,600 km of intervening Indian corridor. Now, the two wings are the two independent nations of Pakistan and Bangladesh. The Indian frontiers with these two countries are over 4,000 km.

While Pakistan was carved out through partition and created on the basis of religion, namely, Islam, what remained of India after the partition was a continuation of a multi-religious and multi-cultural pattern of social organization? The partition of the country not only changed its geographical boundaries, it also significantly affected its demography. It brought in a large refugee population from across the borders.

The country also lost some of its population to Pakistan. However, India remained a unity composed of diversities. Even after the partition, Muslims consti­tuted around 11 per cent of the country’s population, more than the size of the population of the then West Pakistan. As against the Islamic Pakistan, India chose to be a Secular, Democratic Republic.

The adjective, ‘secular’, was to emphasize the fact that no particular religious community dominated the country’s polity. Undivided India, bounded by mountains and seas, appeared to be a natural geographical unit. The Himalayas are like a vast wall of over 2,400 km, with several peaks. It is through the hazardous passes penetrating these mountains that waves of people from different lands arrived in the country.

The Himalayas also influence the climate of the country. They provide India with its principal river systems, and act as barrier checks to the South-West monsoon, thereby conserving the major part of the rain for the country. In addition, they halt the march of the icy winds coming down from the Arctic, across Siberia and Central Asia.

The rivers emanating from the Himalayas provided the highways of navigation and commerce in ancient times. They linked major cities and ports. The river banks offered sites for the cities, and water for irrigation to sustain agriculture in the rural areas. While the Ganga and Yamuna are regarded as holy rivers, there is a special place for the river Indus in Indian history.

The river flows out of the Himalayas and pours into the Arabian Sea in the West. Its five tributaries – Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej – gave Punjab its Persian name, the land of five (panj) rivers (aab). The Vedic Aryans called this river Sindhu (which, inciden­tally, also means sea in Sanskrit). The Persian speaking Iranians pronounced it as Hindu. The Greeks pronounced it as Indos and the Romans modified it to Indus.

This name has stuck and the country’s name – India – is derived from it. Its Persian name was Hindustan, again derived from the name of the river rather than from the Hindu religion. Most of the river Indus now flows in Pakistan, and the province named after it, Sindh is also located there, but both India and Hindustan remain the names of the mainland. The Constitution of India calls the country ‘India, that is, Bharat’.

The geography of the various regions has influenced the ways of life of the people living in them. The economy, habitat, and settlements, dress patterns, food habits, and language of each region are, to an extent, affected by the ecology of the area. Constant arrivals of people from other areas added further to the diversity in terms of race, language, religion, and material culture. Thus, various factors have contributed to the cultural diversity of India and to its rich cultural heritage.