Tamil Nadu Governor R.N. Ravi has yet again raked up a controversy by contending that there is nothing called “the culture of a State.” He said States were created only for the convenience of governance, and that their creation created political identities. This theory is similar to a what Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ideologue M.S. Golwalkar wrote in his book, We, or Our Nationhood Defined.
“For where religion does not form a distinguishing factor, culture together with the other necessary constituents of the Nation idea, becomes the important point in the making of individual nationality. On the other hand, in Hindustan, Religion is an all-absorbing entity. With us, every action in life, individual, social or political, is a command of religion,” wrote Golwalkar. “...Culture is but a product of our all-comprehensive religion, a part of its body and not distinguishable from it.”
Mr. Ravi’s interpretation of culture seems to be shaped by Golwalkar’s ideology. It has led him to complain that the creation of States “created political identities such as ‘Tamilians’, ‘Telanganites’, UP-ites’... and all kinds of fictional identities [which] have been undoing and undermining the core strength of this country.”
