But even if the result is inevitable, man's effort, man's intelligence or lack of it speeds up or delays the realisation of the inevitable process of Nature. Unity has never been achieved in our country, but there has always been a pull, a tendency towards unity which throughout our history has drawn the different parts of India together to make them one. There were some major obstacles in the way of this natural endeavour: first, the regional diversity; secondly, the Hindu-Muslim conflict; thirdly, the lack of a vision of the country as the Mother. The vast area of the land, the difficulties and delays of communication and the diversity of languages have been some of the main factors responsible for regional disunity. Thanks to the advances of modern science all these obstacles have weakened except the last one. Despite the Hindu-Muslim conflict Akbar succeeded in unifying India. Had Aurangzeb not succumbed to bad impulses, under the pressure of time, by force of habit and through fear of foreign aggression the Hindus and Muslims of India, like the Catholics and Protestants in England, would have become permanently united. As a result of Aurangzeb's folly, today at the instigation of a few unscrupulous English politicians the fire of conflict has been kindled and refuses to die out. But the major obstacle is the lack of a vision of the country as the Mother. Our politicians were often incapable of having a vision of the Mother in her totality. Ranjit Singh or Guru Gobind did not see Mother India but Mother Punjab. Shivaji and Bajirao did not see Mother India but the Mother of the Hindus. Other Maharashtrian statesmen saw Mother Maharashtra. During the Partition of Bengal we too had a vision of Mother Bengal. That was an undivided vision and therefore the future unity and progress of Bengal is assured. But the unified image of Mother India has not yet been revealed. The Mother India we worshipped in the Congress with many hymns of praise was imaginary, an attendant and a cherished slave-girl of the English, a monstrous illusion decked in foreign trappings. She is not our Mother; but behind her, hidden in a deep, dim light, our real Mother was all along drawing our minds and hearts. The day we have seen the image of the Mother in her indivisible reality, when enthralled by her beauty and grace we feel a passion to dedicate our lives to her work, on that day this obstacle will vanish and India's unity, freedom and progress will become easy to achieve. The differences of language will no longer be an impediment; we will keep our own mother tongues and yet accept Hindi as the common language, thus eliminating that barrier. We shall be able to evolve a real solution to the Hindu-Muslim conflict. For want of a vision of the country as the Mother, the urge to do away with this obstacle has not been strongly felt; that is why the means has not been found and the conflict has continued to worsen. But her true and indivisible image is needed. If in our yearning for the vision of the Mother we seek her as the Mother of the Hindus, the basis of Hindu nationalism, then we will fall into the old error and be deprived of the full flowering of nationalism.