‘The Melting Pot’, a metaphor used to represent the synthesis of various cultures, to describe the unity in different essences or the presence of different hues at a single place. In other words, it describes a multicultural society. More positively, it represents a multicultural society living harmoniously, happily, and peacefully.
India is a melting pot of different cultures encompassing in itself various languages, traditions, music, art, and whatnot. Since times immemorial there has been the inclusion of different elements into this melting pot, those elements mixing, sharing their value system, and thus reaching out to a delicious and sense charming dish to everyone in every aspect. And hence diversity is the beauty of India when compared with any other homogenous society.
But if that is the beauty of a heterogeneous society, then every such society should be the perfect society. What makes a society more or less perfect is the same as what makes a dish more or less tasty. To test the perfectness of a particular dish there are certain essential requirements and these are, that the very essence of the dish should not be lost, that the new ingredients poured in should be in such a quantity that it only adds to the taste rather than deteriorating it and that the pot should not get overfilled or anything should not be put in the pot that destructs the very structure of the pot. In the end, the very important thing is that every ingredient put in the pot finally gives out its essence and taste though being assimilated in the pot. If these essentials are not fulfilled, then that particular dish will lose out its significance and very relevance. So the very relevance of a society lies in the fact that it does not lose its base or identity that is holding together various elements, there should not be the harmful reaction among different elements and every element maintains its very essence or identity.
Encompassing all these here comes the beauty of the Indic way of life or Hindu way of life and the beautiful connection between the Indic way of life and the positive secularism of India which forms the very basis of Indian society. If we dive deep in history, we would find that ‘Hindu’ is a word given by the Greeks to describe the geographical aspect of the people living in the Indus region. So when talking about the Hindu way of life, it refers to the particular lifestyle, a set of common values that defines the way the people living in the region. Whatever may be the change in the geographical dimensions of the region, it is beyond doubt that there is a particular essence that keeps the region and the country united. For example- Before independence, different states had separate nationalistic feelings, but still, there was a common culture or a common way of life that arouses the basic identity of nationalism across India based on which India has been able to not only liberate itself from the shackles of British slavery but also gave it the shape. It was the diversity of different traditions that provided uniqueness to India and became the base of its society, economy, and polity. And that is why positive secularism matters along with the discussion on the Indic way of life rather than following blindly westernization. Because every ingredient of Indian society is important so is the existence of every culture and assimilation of a new culture. But along with this, it is important to control the actions of harmful elements within the country and stop the incursions of such elements from outside.
Thus arises the necessity to maintain a thin line between positive secularism and spreading communalism in the name of preserving a particular culture. On the same side, it is impertinent to maintain the particular culture and tradition alive rather than sidelining it on the name of secularism and on the need of promoting India as a melting pot liberally.
To maintain the essence of India as a melting pot, it is necessary to understand that different Indian philosophies developed simultaneously through healthy discussion and arguments and thus the various ways of life. It is ironic that as we are modernizing we are losing out on the yardsticks of healthy argument and resorting more to the opposition. We need to understand that society would not develop just on the lines of science and mechanics; rather put a human element in the social society we need humanities, the Indian humanities, far neglected.
