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.

His presentation explored the reality of India's unity, as it was expressed in ancient literature from the North as from the South, also through accounts of foreign travellers from different eras. Religious traditions supplement the picture, with for instance pilgrimage routes defining a sacred geography for India. Finally, with inputs from archaeology, from the South or the North-West to the North-East, Sri Danino provided compelling evidence of the existence of a diverse but unified cultural sphere. 

The Chief Guest of the occasion was Justice (Retd.) S N Phukan. Sri Dipok Kumar Barthakur, Chairman, VKIC presided over the well-attended function that was organized in the VKIC’s Williamson Magor Auditorium in Guwahati .