United We Stand, Divided We Fall

United We Stand, Divided We Fall

Everyone is familiar with the phrase “united we stand divided we fall”. It is a simple phrase, as a counter to Divide and Conquer mantra. This phrase was used by Patrick Henry in his last public speech in 1799. This phrase proved to be so pragmatic to be doubted upon.

 When there is oneness there is likely to be more strength in opinion, more strength in action, and more strength in character. This is a very simple and obvious fact that, if one person tries his hands on some job, he will manage much less than what a group effort will achieve. This, in all simplicity what unity is all about. But over the last few decades, it seems that the importance has been long forgotten in the gluttony of high lifestyles, fancy cars and big TV’s. We have unknowingly been socially organized into different groups, with different mindsets. This has created a divide which is rowing strong and even hateful in some cases.

 If we peep into different spheres of our existence and we can adjudge the truth of this statement. Conquest of happiness has meant different facets to different generations. Our forefathers took pride in scholarship, a spirit of sacrifice and solicitude for the welfare of others. Gone are those days. Today, we only are for ourselves. We are jealous of the advancement of our neighbours. We end up tense and unhappy.

The structural framework of our forefathers' families was different from ours. They lived in a cohesive joint family structure where they were happier than us. They cared for each other. The siblings grew up with their cousins. The siblings that grew in a joint family know the importance of sharing, love, respect, tolerance, responsibility and integrity. But today we have nuclear families. The bond of love could not be easily found among nuclear families. Cousins do not recognise each other when they happen to meet after long time. Life has become very self-centred. Disputes in the family may lead to divisions. This finally destroys the family psyche. Today to satisfy his demands, man can sacrifice his integrity and sense of sincerity in this manner, he may be materially "happy", but his guilty mind always pricks his conscience.

From this smallest unit, we go to the bigger horizon of society. Where is our society today? It is broken into fragments, and each segment, that is, an individual family just looking after itself, as if we sternly believe in the adage, “everyone for himself, and God for all.“ This has become the motto of the society at large. This has lead to the loosening of the ties of the society and this is the cause of the growth of so many social evils. When there is no strong bond in different segments of a society, it is bound to break into factions, and thus lose its strength, both moral and social. 

Everyone must have heard the story of farmers and his four sons in very childhood days. Farmer taught his sons a lesson of unity with a pile of sticks, which did not break when together. We should take lesson from that saga. Even animals know the importance of unity. Small fishes always travel in groups to protect themselves from predators. Even predators prefer to attack prey in groups.

From the society, let us move on to the position of the country. This is the saddest side of our appearance, a complete lack of unity in the country, thereby the creeping in of evils in the very fabric of the system. The country is, to day seen crumbling under its weight of separatism, each state is desirous of a new younger cousin, so instead of getting together, we are continuously moving on the path of disintegration and thus weakening our system.               

The best example of unity that India has ever portrayed has been during its struggle for independence. Even though the struggle lasted for almost a century, the Indians clung together as one single unit unmoved and what happened to the great British Empire is for all of us to see. British Empire knew that people can’t be ruled if they are united, so they opted for “divide and rule.” But gradually and slowly Indians realised importance of unity and ousted out British and freed their country from colonisers.  This is all what unity is about, and this is the magic that unity can play on a country. I am sure that, if India had not depicted its great unity in this war, our History would have been different. India has undoubtedly got an inbuilt strength of unity, which it shows off and on. Then why can it not always stand as one entity, and become a power to reckon with.

The spirit of unity is now-a-days manifested in different forms. We find trade union congress, teacher’s federation, Mill owner’s association, NATO and SEATO etc. this are all the different expressions of unity. Different countries join hands together and form associations. They raise mutual funds, sign agreements and promise each other to help in the hour of need.

So unity is the password which heals all bruises big and small. It is this that helps us enjoy few happy moments of life. In the good moments of a marriage, in the sad moments of sickness and death, it is the unity of the well wishers that makes the pleasure great and despair less. This is the unique power of unity. A lone individual or community can achieve nothing and neither can they enjoy the fruits of any achievement. The secret power of unity is strength, which is built up by mutual trust and faith and love for each other, and the oneness of a single well formulated goal.

To achieve or even to destroy, we need unity, for example, if the terrorists had no unity even they would not have been able to cause as much destruction as they have succeeded in achieving. From Kashmir, lakhs of people have migrated just because the terrorists have their unity in action, thought and spirit and so they are able to destroy as per their target. Thus in order to make any significant achievement, the most necessary ingredient is unity. Your targets may be good or bad, but success is assured if you have a united consolidated group to work up to the goal.