How Can People from Different Communities Live as One Society?
Many places hold several communities side by side, tolerating each other at best. Madhyasth Darshan names what divides people, what everyone shares, and why it says a community is not yet a society. Here is a way to build one society from many communities.
In many towns, several communities live side by side. They share the same roads, markets and weather. They buy from each other, and sometimes work together. And yet they remain apart: different neighbourhoods, different festivals, different stories about each other. On a good day, they tolerate each other. On a bad day, the tolerance breaks.
Tolerance is better than conflict. But it isn’t yet living together. This post asks what it would take for many communities to become one society, and draws on Vyavaharvadi Samajshastra (व्यवहारवादी समाजशास्त्र), Shri A. Nagraj’s book on exactly that question.
This may sound like asking people to give up their faith or culture. It isn’t. Songs, food, dress, festivals and languages are part of what makes humanity rich. The question is what turns those differences into walls.
What divides us
The book names five sources of division:
- differences in the build of the human body, which we have called race;
- differences of colour;
- the many belief-based ways people have tried to escape fear and seek reward, which contradict one another;
- differences in, and rivalry over, the piling up of comforts;
- philosophies and ideologies resting on mystery and uncertainty, which also contradict one another.
From these, it says, communities form around one idea above all: ours and theirs. And they hold together through four kinds of unity: sharing food, marrying within the group, shared politics and shared religion. Each community tends to consider itself the best. History, the book observes, is full of the disputes and wars that follow.
Notice what is not on the list of causes. How people sing. How they dance. What they wear. How they celebrate a birth or mourn a death. The book mentions these as the visible marks of each community’s culture. They are where difference shows. They are not what makes difference dangerous.
What we share
Against those five divisions, the book sets out what every human being needs, whatever their community:
- justice, not a verdict;
- a working order, not rule over them;
- clarity, prosperity, fearlessness and coexistence, not an endless, unsatisfied piling up of comforts and mysteries.
Its summary is four words: humankind is one, actions are many (मानव जाति एक, कर्म अनेक). In Manav Vyavahar Darshan (मानव व्यवहार दर्शन), the darshan puts the same point another way: the one thing that can never be separated from a human being is the wish to be happy. That is every person’s nature, in every community.
And the book makes a hopeful observation: most people today want the walls between communities to come down. They have come to see the distance as a curse rather than a blessing.
“Humankind is one, actions are many.”
A community is not yet a society
The book draws one sharp distinction: a community is not a society, and a society is not a community. A community is defined by who belongs, and so by who doesn’t. A society, in Madhyasth Darshan, is defined by how people live: by humane conduct, justice in relationships, and enough for every family. The Paribhasha Sanhita describes an undivided society (अखण्ड समाज) as a human tradition free of community consciousness.
Seen this way, the goal isn’t to merge communities into one big one. It is to build something on a different basis altogether, one everyone can belong to because belonging depends on how you live, not where you were born.
Step 1: Start from what everyone needs
When people from different communities meet to solve something, begin with the needs on the book’s list. Every family wants justice, a working order, clarity, prosperity, safety and peace with its neighbours. Name them out loud. It is very hard to see someone as wholly “other” once you have agreed that you want exactly the same things.
Step 2: Enjoy each other’s differences
Songs, food, dress, languages and festivals are the “actions are many” part of the book’s phrase. They are humanity’s richness, not its problem. Invite each other to them. Learn a song from the other community. Eat each other’s food. A society that is one underneath can be wonderfully varied on top.
For many people, faith, language and custom are not on the surface at all. They are how they live their deepest commitments, and many reach solidarity with others through them. The book’s point is about what everyone shares beneath these differences, not a claim that the differences are shallow.
Step 3: Address what actually divides
When tension rises, look past the visible differences to the five real causes. Is someone afraid? Is there rivalry over land, jobs or resources? Is one group being told it is superior? These are what need attention. Arguing about whose festival is louder rarely helps. Making sure every family has enough, and that no one has reason to fear another, often does.
Step 4: Organise around families and needs, not identity
Madhyasth Darshan’s plan for a village builds everything from families: assemblies of families, committees for education, health, production, exchange and justice, a shared exchange fund. Nowhere does it ask which community a family belongs to. Its questions are which families have enough, which children are learning, which disputes are unresolved. We set it out in How to Organise a Village So Every Family Has Enough.
Schools matter most of all, because they shape how the next generation sees “us” and “them”. A school that teaches what all human beings share, as described in How to Design a School, is building one society every day.
Step 5: Settle disputes as relationships
Conflicts between communities often begin as disputes between two neighbours, over a boundary, a path, a sound, an insult, that grow because each side gathers its own. Settle them early, close to home, as a relationship between two families rather than a contest between two groups. The steps are in How to Settle a Dispute So Both Sides Are Satisfied.
Step 6: Celebrate together
Some celebrations belong to everyone already: the seasons, the harvest, a child’s first day at school, a graduation, the village’s good year. Celebrate these together, across communities. We describe how in How to Celebrate What Matters. A village that celebrates its year together is already, in that moment, one society.
And the planet?
Division is expensive for the earth. The book observes that much of science and technology has been developed in the service of military strength, and in Samadhanatmak Bhautikvad (समाधानात्मक भौतिकवाद) the darshan holds that more of what is taken from the earth goes into war materials than into what people need. That is the book’s view from its own time, not a current measurement. Communities that arm and stockpile against each other take far more than they need. Communities that trust each other can share reserves, land and water instead. The planet is one place, and it is shared by one humankind. We look at what that means in How Can Eight Billion People Share One Earth?
And our happiness?
Many people carry, all their lives, a quiet wariness of “the others”: in a crowd, at a festival, when the news turns bad. Living as one society removes that fear. And it adds something too: neighbours who become friends, songs and food you would never otherwise have known, and children who grow up seeing everyone around them as part of one human family. We look at why fear and safety are so closely tied to relationships in How to Make a Community Safe.
A protocol to try
Think of one neighbour or colleague from a community other than your own. Write down three things you both need from life.
Then find one occasion this month, a meal, a festival, a conversation, to share something of your own with them, and to learn something of theirs.
Limitations
- Shri A. Nagraj is critical of belief-based traditions as a source of division. For many readers, faith is central to their lives, and many traditions themselves teach the unity of humanity. We haven’t tried to settle that question here.
- Some divisions rest on real injustice, past and present. Living as one society doesn’t mean pretending it didn’t happen, and healing it may take more than the steps here.
- We describe what neighbours and villages can do. Divisions maintained by politics or by force need more than that.
- The six steps are our own arrangement, and we haven’t yet tested them.
References
- Shri A. Nagraj, Vyavaharvadi Samajshastra (व्यवहारवादी समाजशास्त्र), introduction (five causes of division; everyone needs justice, not a verdict; a working order, not rule), p. 1 (every community considers itself superior), pp. 10–11 (own and other; what communities unite around; visible differences of culture), p. 33 (bitterness between communities; humankind is one, actions are many), p. 60 (most people want the walls removed), p. 150 (a community is not a society)
- Shri A. Nagraj, Samadhanatmak Bhautikvad (समाधानात्मक भौतिकवाद), p. 92 (more taken from the earth for war materials than for people’s needs)
- Shri A. Nagraj, Manav Vyavahar Darshan (मानव व्यवहार दर्शन), p. 140 (the dharma of every human being is happiness)
- Madhyasth Darshan Paribhasha Sanhita, अखण्ड समाज (undivided society), p. 1
