ABSTRACT
Nearly every sixth human being in the world is an Indian. The People's Republic of China alone has a bigger population. Even a cursory look at this Titan reveals the survival of different peoples. Rabindranath Tagore called India "the seashore of humanity". I Many came, but few returned. One sees, nevertheless, an unbroken development of civilization from remote antiquity right up to our times. India is a mosaic of many races and cultures. So many centuries of known history brought into being a remarkable amalgam on this Sub-continent. A glance at the people of India may be based on many possible classifications-regional, linguistic, or religious. Although India experienced periods of decline as well, the stream of its culture was always large and comprehensive. While the orthodox elements fought against what was new, the progressive intelligentsia was often busy assimilating the accumulative culture which was never monolithic. It is no exaggeration to say that while entire populations in Europe indulged, for centuries, in orgies of wholesale destruction unparalleled in ferocity, India made constant adjustments with peoples who came wave after wave. With a long history of nearly five-thousand years, its population presents many strains in diverse stages of admixture. As Tagore noted, life moves in the cadence of constant adjustment of opposites; it is a perpetual process of reconciliation of contradictions.2 Although assimilation does not always amount to integration, the assimilative genius of India has been unique.
