India, Sept. 13 -- Though the British left an enduring legacy of telling us otherwise, it is clear that there are astonishing convergences over the centuries in the way a disparate set of historical commentators and observers attest a readily recognizable idea of India. And Kashmir is always there in it! This idea embraces, with no apparent unease, both India's vastness and spatial unity as well as her incredible diversity.

In his perceptive piece on Kashmir published on 6 September, aptly titled "The Pied Pipers of Hate", Shiv Kunal Verma made a quiet plea for at least two kinds of realization: one, the unity of India over and above the narrow domestic walls that divide Indians in the micro perspective. And two, the deeply corrupt poli...