द इण्डियन स्ट्रगल / भारतीय स्वाधीनता संग्राम (नेताजी सुभाष चन्द्र बोस - ऐतिहासिक विश्लेषण)

10 THE INDIAN STRUGGLE there is nevertheless a powerful nationalist movement in th country to-day and a strong sense of unity, it is due entirel to the fact that the people have for the first time in their histor begun to feel that they have been conquered and simul taneously they have begun to realise the deplorable effect —both cultural and material—which follow in the wake o political servitude. Though geographically, ethnologically and historically India presents an endless diversity to any observer—there i none the less a fundamental unity underlying this diversity. But as Mr. Vincent A. Smith has said: 'European writers a a rule, have been more conscious of the diversity than of the unity of India. . . . India beyond all doubt possesses a dee underlying fundamental unity, far more profound than tha produced either by geographical isolation or by politica suzerainty. That unity transcends the innumerable diver- sities of blood, colour, language, dress, manners and sect.'¹ Geographically, India seems to be cut out from the rest o the world as a self-contained unit. Bounded on the north by the mighty Himalayas and surrounded on both sides by the endless ocean, India affords the best example of a geographica unit. The ethnic diversity of India has never been a pro- blem—for throughout her history she has been able to absorb different races and impose on them one common culture and tradition. The most important cementing factor has been the Hindu religion. North or South, East or West, wherever you may travel, you will find the same religious ideas, th same culture and the same tradition. All Hindus look upon India as the Holy Land. The sacred rivers like the sacre cities are distributed all over the country.² If as a pious Hindu you have to complete your round of pilgrimage, you will have to travel to Setubandha-Rameswara in the extreme south and to Badrinath in the bosom of the snow-capped Himalayas in the north. The great teachers who wanted to convert the country to their faith had always to tour th whole of India and one of the greatest of them, Shankara- ¹ Vincent A. Smith, The Oxford History of India, Introduction, p. 10. ² These and other facts and arguments will be found in Prof. Radh Kumud Mookerji's The Fundamental Unity of India. (Longmans, 1914.