Ahmedabad, Apr 21 (PTI) India has many languages, but all of them carry the same ‘bhav’ or feeling, which is the source of the country’s solidarity, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat said here on Thursday.
He also said that India has always believed that there is no need to be alike to remain united.
Bhagwat’s remarks on languages comes amid allegations that efforts were being made to impose Hindi language on non-Hindi speaking states in the country.
The RSS chief was here to confer awards instituted by Gujarat Sahitya Academy to the books in Sanskrit language, and to launch the Gujarati translation of Odia book ‘Ananya Jagannath Anubhutima.’
“Whatever the language – because in the end, there are many languages. It is said there are around 3,800 languages, including dialects, and it is difficult to understand the same language spoken in a different way. I have heard Gujarati spoken in Saurashtra, which requires an effort to understand. But even if languages are different, the ‘bhav’ after all is the same. This is India’s solidarity,” he said.
He said that there is no other country like India, and while people the world over say that one has to be alike to remain united, India has believed, since ancient times, that there is no need to be the same to be united.
“We have been saying ‘unity in diversity’, but all of us have to use some more words and say, ‘Ekta ki vividhata’ (diversity of unity),” he said.
The RSS chief said there are many languages in the country, but all of them carry the same ‘bhav’ (feeling).
“There is Ramayana, Mahabharata in all the languages…Proverbs of the same meanings, traditions of all the languages express this same bhav,” he said.
“There are many languages, many sects, customs and traditions, but since ancient times, India is the same. It is united not because someone made it so, nor will it break because someone attempts to do so,” he said.
Bhagwat said the natural expression of India’s national feeling is to help countries in distress and not to wage a war.
“India has become big. After becoming big, did India go to war?…It supplied water to Maldives, evacuated people trapped in other nations at war, twice and thrice, supplied rice to Sri Lanka which is facing a crisis. What is this? It is a natural expression of our ‘rashtriya bhav’ (national feeling),” he said.