Q9 · UPSC Civil Services Mains 2017 · GS I · 10 marks · 2 min read

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In the context of the diversity of India, can it be said that the regions form cultural units rather than the States? Give reasons with examples for your view point.

Topic: Indian Society and Diversity. Syllabus: Salient features of Indian Society, Diversity of India. Same official PYQ from year-wise 2017 and Indian Society and Diversity.

Revision summary

Culture follows dialect, food, and old country names more tightly than State borders. Bundelkhand, Bhojpuri country, Konkan, and Saurashtra are examples of mismatch. Linguistic States still concentrate a public language and cinema. Nested diversity means a State can contain many regions and a region can cross States. The fair view is that regions are the primary cultural units, States the political frame.

Model answer

Flow diagram

flowchart TD
  R[Historic regions] --> C[Speech food festival]
  ST[States] --> A[Law school official tongue]
  C --> D[Diversity]
  A --> D
  R -.->|often cross| ST

Conclusion

  • Answer yes, with a caveat: regions are the finer cultural units; States are the legal frames that sometimes fit and often approximate those units.
  • Use concrete belts, not a claim that States have no culture at all.

In India’s diversity, cultural units are more often historic-ecological regions than the State outline on a wall map. States matter for law and language policy, but they sit on top of Konkan, Bundelkhand, Mithila, and similar living regions that ignore those lines.

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