Assam CM on why India is not a 'constitutional' but 'civilisational democracy'
The Assam CM made the remarks at the inaugural programme of the 3rd edition of Lokmanthan 2022 in Guwahati.
India is not a "constitutional democracy" but "civilisation democracy", Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has said. Sarma asserted the sense of Indian identity is not a "19th-century phenomenon" when the country had begun to imagine itself as a nation-state, but that of a "civilizational continuity" of the past several millennia.
Addressing an event on Thursday, Sarma was quoted as saying by news agency ANI, "Bharatvarsha is not just a nation-state that came into being in the 19th century, but a living entity. India nurtures one of the oldest civilizations in the world. The sense of Indian identity is not a 19th-century phenomenon when India began to imagine itself as a nation-state."
"The sense of India is a civilizational continuity of the past several millennia."
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The Bharatiya Janata Party leader said the European colonial rule could not succeed in destroying the ancient beliefs and traditions of India because of the inherent power of "Sanatan civilization" that, he said, had remained “unbeatable”.
The Assam CM made the remarks at the inaugural programme of the 3rd edition of Lokmanthan 2022 in Guwahati.
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He also that a major characteristic of Indian civilization is that it does not consider the country only as an inert political entity.
"For us, our nation is akin to our Mother, a vibrant goddess whose every geographical appearance - the landscape-rivers-hills and mountains find a place in the verses and hymns of the Indian scriptures. North East had deeply enriched the great ancient Indian civilisation. Eminent 15th-century Vaishnavite saint Mahapurush Srimanta Sankardev was the first to associate Bharatvarsha with Assam and referred to it as its motherland," he added.
(With ANI inputs)
