The unity of Indian society and culture surges ahead and blossoms like a flower in spite of several diversities. This in deed is strange enough a factor which often eludes the plausible answer. Indians are highly emotional and they exhibit their emotional unity at moments of national crises. Indians have been bound up socio-culturally and emotionally for at least 2,500 years, i.e. from the time of Indus Valley Civilisation. Indian has always attracted peoples from outside and many of them have settled down in this subcontinent. It can be said that the lap of mother India is cosy soothing and comfortable. The flow of outsiders to India continues till today at least from two neighbouring countries, one in the east and the other in the West.
The national government of India and t benevolent people of India have never repulsed anyone who is genuinely interested settling down in the country. In the world, all countries are not equally hospitable a sympathetic towards refugees who are embroiled in some kind of predicament. It is fact the later immigrants to India have found cooperation and all kinds of assistance from the host population of India. There has not been reports of strong conflicts a feuds between the guest population and host population. Therefore it can be concluded that India and her denizens are catholic, magnanimous and benevolent towards people who are in distress.
Indian history is a mute witness to the influx of outsiders who came into the subcontinent either to conquer territories and people or to plunder wealth or to settle down as citizens. History tells us that people of many nationalities came to India subcontinent with imperial designs; some of whom settled down as citizens and some others departed from India. The Indian national movement was directed against the British colonial government.
The British had come initially as traders, but later on the assumed the role of rulers and ruled India for 150 years. One thing need be mentioned here that India was not territorially one country before the British occupation of India Undoubtedly the British made a very positive contribution by unifying disparate tiny kingdoms and monarchies of India. India had probably achieved near-complete territorial integration during the rule of imperial Mauryas. Mauryan rule from the time of Chandragupta to Samudra Gupta and Ashoka exhibited the glory of territorial unity in India. But this territorial unity and integrity did not last long. The subsequent Hindu rules were not-worthy of integrating the disparate territories politically although Indian society demonstrated some sort of socio-cultural integration.
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During the time of Mauryas India society was by and large co-terminus with Hindu India. The ethno-religious trend Indian society took a different turn with the advent of Muslims, Mughals and Christian At different points of time, it is not out of place to draw the attention of our readers the fact, that the great visionaries, like Lord Buddha and Lord Mahavir have expressed their dissatisfaction with the Brahmanical form of Hinduism and rigid norms of caste society which was prevalent during that time. They attempted to wipe out Socio-cultural inequalities from Indian society through the social commandments which they had propounded. Indian society remained a proverbial elephant not yielding to reformist movements.
At later period of Indian history Guru Nanak, Swami Dayanand Saraswati, Raja Rammohan Ray, E.V. Ramaswamy Nicker, Gujarati Saint Narasimha Mehta and many other reformists tried to remove inequality from Indian social structure and they succeeded with limited achievement. However, their struggle and endeavour are not gone in vain. Their sole aim was to integrate Indian society on the basis of equality of status. Some say that despite discriminations and differentiations in social hierarchy, the Indian society functioned cohesively. Some social scientists may not accept this argument because Indian society till today is not based on complete Socio-cultural equality. Age-old and anachronistic Socio-cultural practices continue to divide the Indian society impairing its vitality.