"despite being so diverse,India has managed to stay united "essay
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Answer:
Many answers have written democracy as the uniting factor, but it is just a 70 year old phenomenon. Some people have written the fight for Independence against British as a factor. That helped us prepare to be an united republic no doubt, but that is also a 300 year old phenomenon. The idea of India is very old. The world knew this consolidated civilization starting from Hindu Kush to Burmese peninsula, surrounded on top by Himalayas and on the bottom by the ocean - since a very very long time.
Now let me come to my answer - what unites India is faith. The fact that a woman living in South India who cant speak a world of Hindi, still wishes to see Kashi. The fact that people living in North India throng to see Tirupati Balaji and Rameshwaram. The fact that a person in UP has faith in Dwarka in Gujarat. The fact that Gujratis travel to Mathura Vrindavan to worship the birthplace of lord Krishna. The fact that people from all over India visit Vaishno Devi temple in Jammu & Kashmir and Kamakhya temple in Assam. The fact that people from all over the country visit Shirdi, the monastery of a Marathi saint. The fact that for thousands of years these people have had faith in Shiva, Ram, Krishna, Durga, Parvati, Kali, Ganesh, Karthik, Balaji and so many similar Gods and saints. This is what united us for centuries.
Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism all became integral part of this faith with time. Sikhs respected Hindu Gods, Hindus respected Sikh gurus. Many Sikhs visit temples and Hindus visit Gurudwaras. All religions born on this land became part of a grander faith where we respected and worshiped all the philosophies, gurus and the symbolic entities associated with these faiths. To people of these faiths it is no surprise that Buddha and the 10 Sikh Gurus are worshiped in the main Krishna temple in Mathura.
The hard truth is that even today, our collective faith is what keeps us together. Democracy helps us being together in an official way. But faith holds us together in an emotional and philosophical way. We might bicker and fight as we are very different in terms of language, cuisine, culture, values etc. But we will not part ways, as this is the land of our faith