Unity IN diversity is a deep concept. It is not unity AND diversity, it is recognising that the universal manifests in the specific. One doesn’t have to annihilate any source of diverse identity in order to feel one with the universal identity. See Kantara. The specific resonates
Identity cannot be reduced to a common minimum program like some coalition government. Its richness derives from its rootedness. From the specific traditions, carefully nurtured and passed on through generations. But each of those is a path to the universal truth.
The diversity is a bridge (to the universal) not a barrier. My sense is that people who have high anxiety that it is the latter engage with tradition only intellectually as an outsider gazing in, not as people *living* the tradition as praxis.
People who live the tradition know that the microcosm encapsulates the macrocosm. Rishabh Shetty puts it simply in his interviews when asked about why he chose to depict something to specific to one part of Karnataka: He knew every village or region of India has something similar
Many of us had never even heard of Bhuta Kola, the Daivas - Panjurli and Guliga etc. But the transcendence that is experienced by the artist and manifests on screen connects with us as the audience too
Every facet of our diverse traditions merits conservation- kula- jAti, language, sampradaya, gender, ashrama, and many more. Like all conservation it doesn’t mean no adaptation. But it does mean a stance of deference, and a praxis of rigour to the extent possible.
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