Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 1

The Way to Unity

COMMON love, common labour and, above all, as the great French thinker, Ernest Renan,* pointed out, common suf­fering – that is the cement which welds together the disparate elements of a nation-a nation is not formed otherwise. A nation means peoples differing in race and religion, caste and creed and even language, fused together into a composite but indivisible unit. Not pact nor balancing of interests nor sharing of power and profit can permanently combine and unify conflicting groups and collectivities. Hindus and Muslims, the two major sections that are at loggerheads today in India, must be given a field, indeed more than one field, where they can, work together; they must be made to come in contact with each other, to coalesce and dovetail into each other in as many ways and directions as possible. Instead of keeping them separate in water-tight compartments, in barred cages, as it were, lest they pounce upon each other like wild beasts, it would be wiser to throw them together; let them breathe the same air, live the same life, share the same troubles, the same difficulties, solve the same problems. That is how they

*"Dans le passé, un héritage de gloire et de regrets á partager, dans l'avenir un même programme à réaliser; avoir souffert, joui, espéré ensemble, voilà ce qui vaut mieux que des douanes communes et des frontiéres conformes aux idées stratégiques: voilà ce que l'on comprend malgré leg diversités de race et de langue. Je disais tout à l'heure: "avoir souffert ensemble"; oui, la souffrance en commun unit plus que la joie. En fait de souvenirs nationaux, les deuils valent mieux que leg triomphes.. . "

Ernest Renan: "Qu'est-ce qu'une nation?"

Translation: "In the past a heritage of glory and regrets to share, in the future the same programme to realise; to have suffered, enjoyed, hoped together, that indeed is better than common customs and strategic frontiers; that is what one understands in spite of diversities of race and language. I said just now: "to have suffered together"; yes, common suffering unites more than common joy. In respect of the memories of a nation griefs are worth more than triumphs. . . . "

Ernest Renan: "What is a nation?"

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will best understand, appreciate and even love each other, become comrades and companions, not rivals and opponents.

To have union, one must unite – division can never lead to unity. Also this unity is established automatically and irrevo­cably, not by any abstract sense of justice and equality, nor by any romantic or imaginative feeling of fraternity, but by a dynamic living together. A common political and civic and economic life creates a field of force that can draw together into a harmonious working the most contrary and refractory elements.

We have said, however, time and again, that the present war is a great opportunity offered by Nature and Providence, opportunity that comes only once in a way; it is precisely the field of which we speak, the field par excellence, which can compel all centrifugal elements to come together, labour together, enjoy and suffer together and turn and transmute them into the very strongest centripetal components.

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