The 6TH VEDANTA VACHASPATI R.N. PHUKAN MEMORIAL LECTURE was delivered by Sri Michel Danino, a keen student of Indian History, Author and Founder, International Forum for India’s Heritage on 7th September 2008. Speaking on the topic India’s Unity in Literature and History: Concept and Practice Shri Danino said that there is a widespread conception that India, as a nation, is the creation of the colonial era, which gave political unity to what was nothing but a loose congeries of disparate and often unrelated ethnic groups, regional powers, languages and local cultures. We do hear of “unity in diversity,” but the emphasis is always on the latter, the former remaining a vague, unexplained concept, he said.