Page:Calcutta Review (1925) Vol. 16.djvu/390

374 and then who can count the number of innumerable spoken dialects, as the late well-known orientalist E. Sachau said that by talking with a man from Bagdad he could tell from which quarter of the town he came from! Thus without exaggeration it can be said that there are as many dialects as men.” And in this way the number of dialects can be increased ad infinitum. But every dialect cannot be cited as a language, neither as an evidence of heterogeneity nor as the basis of “race” as Grierson has done in some cases in India. Here we must remember that some of the important nations of the world to-day are strong nations in spite of dialectic differences.

Thirdly, comes the question of different historical development. Truly, each language group inhabiting a certain area of India have got histories of their own. But the cultural history of India had never been separate, no part in any length of time has gone separate from the rest, rather the sumtotal of all has made the Indian history. Then in the course of her history India have had centralized all-India imperium. During these periods attempts have been made to put the whole land under one political head and to bring the whole country under one historical evolution. To-day the whole country again has got a common historical fate and development.

Fourthly, comes the question of religion. It is a great bond of union in the East especially in western Asia where religion and not the race and language, plays the formative basis of nationality. In India there are different religions with irreconcilable social-polities and world views. And this difference has made the task of the formation of Indian nationality more difficult. Yet in modern civilized countries religion plays no role in civic life. A modern man in dealing with his fellow-beings rises above his religious limitations.

Thus in our analysis of the Indian condition we see that leaving aside the exaggerated differences, the important factors