{"id":228501,"date":"2023-03-27T12:00:32","date_gmt":"2023-03-27T11:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=228501"},"modified":"2023-02-03T03:33:09","modified_gmt":"2023-02-03T03:33:09","slug":"diversities-in-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/03\/diversities-in-india\/","title":{"rendered":"Diversities in India"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

The map of India showing states and union territories.
\u00a9 Mapsofindia.com<\/p><\/div>\n

As most would know, India has various diversities in different sectors \u2014 religious, linguistic, food, gastronomy, clothes or dresses worn by people, etc. There are many religions in the country. Apart from the largest number of Hindus, and second largest Muslims, there are other religions with large number of believers \u2014 Jainism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Baha\u2019i Faith, Dev Samaj, etc.<\/p>\n

Even animals and birds found in the country\u00a0\u00a0show variety and diversity \u2014 for example there are dangerous animals like lions and cheetahs and docile one\u2019s like\u00a0 peacocks. There are monkeys everywhere\u2014 they create fear among people walking on roads where these animals jump around waiting for persons to throw bananas to them.<\/p>\n

Elephants are huge animals but generally they are docile and quite non violent in nature. Earlier the Raja of the\u00a0State of Mysore<\/em>\u00a0in the south of the country had many elephants which used to be dressed up and paraded on religious occasions. Even the fish that swarm the rivers and the two oceans that are on the west and east coasts of the country show variations. The forest lands on the coasts as well as the birds show differences from one another. Many differences are noticed in the hilly regions of the country\u00a0also.<\/p>\n

Interestingly,\u00a0racially also people of the country show variations. People of Panjab, Haryana, Delhi, and J & K\u00a0\u00a0(Jammu and Kashmir, north India) have distinct features and are generally tall, and men have a lot of hair on their bodies but people of Bengal, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh have distinctive features and much less hair on their bodies. They also have different facial looks.<\/p>\n

Linguistically, India has several different states in which languages spoken\u00a0\u00a0are also different. The Indian Constitution recognises 22 languages. Of course, Hindi spoken in the states of UP (Uttar Pradesh), Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Delhi etc is the most common language, but there are \u00a0 many other languages such as Bengali spoken in Bengal, Oriya in the state of Orissa , Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayam in the southern states of Tamil Nadu,\u00a0\u00a0Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala. In addition there are many tribal languages spoken in different regions of the country.\u00a0\u00a0Surprisingly, two languages are also recognised by the Constitution of India \u2014 Nepali (of Nepal) and Sindhi of the state of Sindh in Pakistan.<\/p>\n

Even temperature wise India has many variations. The\u00a0\u00a0hottest places such as\u00a0Churu<\/em>\u00a0in the western state of Rajasthan where the temperature shoots up to 50*C in summers and the coldest inhabited\u00a0\u00a0place such as\u00a0Dras\u00a0In\u00a0<\/em>Kargil town in the state\u00a0of J & K where the temperatures may fall down to -40\u00baC in winters. Of course, regions near\u00a0the mountains and hills\u00a0could<\/em> become even colder. Churu also has severe winters. From the point of rains, the state of Meghalaya gets a lot of rainfall but some states such as Rajasthan are relatively dry.<\/p>\n

Earlier, Delhi the capital of India used to become terribly hot in summers and moderately cold in winters. But now it is becoming extremely cold in winters\u00a0\u00a0\u2014 sometimes colder than J&K or Himachal Pradesh. Why I am stressing this feature is because I live in Delhi and have a lot of difficulty in maintaining my equilibrium because of the cold. Many poor people living in Delhi and surroundings have to somehow brave the cold and carry on their normal activities and attend to their duties. The farmers also have to attend to their farms both in summers and in winters.<\/p>\n

In winters, I put on several layers of warm clothes\u2014 sweaters, jackets and overcoats but even then, the cold seems to penetrate the\u00a0\u00a0bodies of elderly people like myself and we feel like just remaining in our homes, trying to keep warm underneath the two or three layers of blankets. Can we say that weather wise we are susceptible to both the cold of winters and the hotness of summers? Of course!<\/p>\n

Is there any remedy to this problem? I am still searching for one \u2014 perhaps some readers of my essay on the TMS<\/em> Weekly Digest<\/em> will help me on this point if the editor, Antonio C.S. Rosa, finds this piece suitable for the TMS<\/em> Digest<\/em>.<\/p>\n

______________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Dr Ravi P Bhatia is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/a>, an<\/em> educationist, Gandhian scholar and peace researcher. Retired professor, Delhi University. His new book, <\/em>A Garland of Ideas\u2014Gandhian, Religious, Educational, Environmental was published recently in Delhi.<\/em> ravipbhatia@gmail.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As most would know, India has various diversities in different sectors \u2014 religious, linguistic, food, gastronomy, clothes or dresses worn by people, etc. There are many religions in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":144566,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[290,355,759],"class_list":["post-228501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","tag-culture","tag-diversity","tag-india"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}