 Hello everyone, my name is Deeksha Jain and I secured the 22nd rank in civil services examination 2018. In this video, we will be talking about the Indian society and the topic is diversity of India. As you all know, India is a very diverse country and at multiple levels. So we will try to discuss the major levels at which this diversity is very evident. The first one is geography of India. If you look at the Himalayan mountains and then if you look at the islands of Anima, Nicobar and Lakshadweep, it is very evident that we have one of the highest peaks in the world and also the low islands, these islands are also in our country. At the same time, there are thickly forested northeastern regions and also the desert of Rajasthan. There is the plateau of Peninsular India and the plains of central and northern India. Geographically, India is a very rich and diverse country and this geography has led to many regional differences, differences of customs, costumes, languages, etc. So moving from geographical diversity, the next one is caste diversity. Now although caste has been abolished in India, we have the right to equality and no person can be discriminated against on the basis of their caste, but caste has been a part of the Indian society. And whether we like it or not, even today India has many cast, there is caste-based politics also and there is also a healthy movement of lower caste who are trying to empower themselves. Also the caste diversity of India is also there. Earlier, there was a four-fold society of the Shatriya, Brahmin, Vaishya and Shudra and the Atishudras who were excluded from the caste, the caste structure. But now they have also over the years developed into many thousands of castes. So the caste identity in India is one of the important aspects of diversity of India and it is something that we are trying to overcome in our aim to move towards equality. The third one is tribal diversity. 8.6% of Indian population is tribal and when we say tribal, we do not mean that all tribal societies are the same. There is in fact a lot of diversity even between tribal societies. If we talk about the racial diversity in these tribal societies, there is Negrito, proto-Australoid, Mongoloids, Mediterranean or Zravidars, the Western Brachysophilus, the Nordic. Even within its tribal groups, India has a lot of racial diversity. And these tribes are very different. The problems that the Central Indian tribes face are very different from the Northeastern tribes and they are at the same time very different from tribes which are inhabiting the islands like Andhra, Manicoba, recently Sunsills were in use. So they are a completely isolated tribe. So their life is very different from a tribe which would be more integrated with the mainstream society. In terms of percentage, Madhya Pradesh has the highest number of tribal society while Nagaland has the highest percentage. Now we can move to the socio-cultural diversity. So this is reflected in food, habits, customs, costumes, etc. There is a lot of cultural difference if you move from Rajasthan in the West to let us say Manipur in the East. For example, Manipur has the Manipuri dance, the clothes are different, the food is so different from Western India. So in this way, every part and region of India has its own very unique cultural evolution and journey. Next is religious diversity. India is a multi-religious society with the maximum population being of Hinduism, followed by Islam. I think Hindus are close to 80% and Muslims are 14.2%. Christians are their gents, Buddhists and even other categories which are recognized as other in the constitution also close to 0.5% of the population. So India has a lot of religious diversity and this is again reflected in the various practices that and rituals that people have. Let us now move to linguistic diversity. As per the Indian dessert, 179 languages are spoken and 554 dialects are there. Even the constitution's schedule has 22 languages which are recognized. So India has a very rich linguistic tradition with many, many languages and that has also led to a lot of diversity in India. Language apart from being a major source of communication is also a form of identity. Many people have linguistic identities. For example, many states had been bifurcated on the basis of language in 1956. So that is a very major component of identity of people. Apart from that, we also have ideological diversity who are on the left. That is their leftist in their approach and there are people who are rightist. Some people may be centralist. People's ideology might be influenced more by religion or less by religion. So there is also a lot of ideological diversity. There is a lot of political diversity. At the national level, there are various political parties that are coming up earlier. At the national level, one party used to dominate a lot but over the years now it has more and more parties are becoming important at the national level. At the regional and sub-regional level, the diversity is much more. Political parties which have a very good political grip in their own region, whether it is Bengal or UP or South Indian states like Tamil Nadu. So political parties also show a lot of diversity and basically the Indian diversity is reflected in the political parties as well. Finally, there is also demographic diversity which basically means that the demographic pattern in India is different. This difference is very stark in terms of North and South. North India is more densely populated. There is younger population in Northern India. In Southern India, on the other hand, the population is aging more than North India and the population is also less dense. This is again not a generalization because then states like Kerala have a high population density. Delhi has a very high population density. So even in terms of demographic indicators, India is very diverse. Finally, this is the factual part of it that India is a diverse country in so many aspects and the analytical part of it is that so much diversity also leads to certain problems. It can be a source of certain problems. So diversity is very natural because differentiation and social evolution is like that. But then because of diversity there have been clashes. So it can lead to forces like communalism, left-wing extremism or regionalism or activism on the basis of tribal activism or linguistic separatism, etcetera. So all these are divisional forces which are harmful to the unity and integrity of India. And one would think like what is the solution to this? How do we manage diversity in a healthy manner? The truth is that India has been a very diverse country for so many centuries and it has managed itself pretty well and there can be two approaches. One is that you neutralize diversity. You turn everybody into try to make everybody follow the same rules and be in the same way. But that is not successful and it is impossible to assimilate the diversity that India has. So the other solution is that we ensure peaceful coexistence of all the diverse people that are there in India and that is the way that has been taken so that everybody enjoys the fundamental rights. Diversity has their cultural and educational rights which gives them certain right to expression. So this is the way by assimilating various strands of the society that India has evolved into a rich and multi-fairest country. So India is considered land of diversity and this is a natural process through which India has gone through social evolution and this diversity also can create certain problems like Nuxillism, Separatism, Communalism. So all these fissures may also appear in the society but we have had a healthy history of peaceful coexistence. Assimilating a diverse country like India by reducing people into the same type or by forcing people to follow one pattern of life is not possible. And what India has been focusing on successfully and what we have is multiculturalism and peaceful coexistence of all the diverse communities that are in India so that they can contribute to India in all the multiple ways that they can. Moving from the diversity in India to the next topic which is the basic features of India. Now many of the basic features that are there for example the tribal diversity of India, caste, geography of India etc already covered in terms of the diversity of India. India's diversity is its foremost basic feature but apart from that if we move from there to more ideological basic features of the Indian society we can talk about the first is unity in diversity. Indian society has been diverse over centuries but it has also been unified in many ways under many rulers and especially after the birth of India as a country we have focused on unity in diversity as a motto so that all the diverse sections of our society can live in peace and harmony. The second would be tolerance again this is also related to assimilation of diversity. Tolerance is also in terms of the constitutional tolerance in terms of tolerance between different religions, different caste groups, different sections of the society and tolerance in terms of the individual freedoms, freedom of speech, freedom of movement to any part of India. So there is a lot of these are all to create more harmony and interconnectedness in the country so tolerance has also been a basic feature of Indian society. Peace and harmony is also a related feature which has been a part of Indian society for a very long time. Another feature would be ancientness and adaptability. Indian society has shown a continuity with the ancient culture, ancient and whatever historical culture that we have accumulated over time and also movement towards modernity which is specially seen in urban areas and with the coming of globalization that has been there even more. So a balance of ancientness and adaptability is also a part of the Indian society. And finally the role of spirituality India has been the birthplace of so many religions of the world and India has been known for spiritual saints like for example Shankaracharya movements like Bhakti movement, Sufi movement and Buddhism, Jainism etc. So it has been a land of spirituality. So in terms of structural basic features we can talk about caste, gender, tribes etc. but in terms of ideological basic features we can talk about this. One more basic feature of India that I would like to talk about is that India is largely and continues to remain a rural society because more than 60% of India's population continues to reside in rural India and practices agriculture. So it is a basic feature of Indian society because it has been a country like that for centuries in ancient India, medieval India as well as in modern India agriculture has been one of the major occupation of people. Of course in modern India our focus has shifted to manufacturing and services as well but India continues to be a rural society at the same time. So these are the basic features of Indian society.