...the Guardian was very pleased to learn of the progress
made by the Indian National Spiritual Assembly in its efforts to consolidate,
widen and maintain the scope of its national activities. The difficulties in
your way are tremendous. The differences of language and of social and
intellectual background do, undoubtedly, render the work somewhat difficult to
carry out and may temporarily check the efficient and smooth working of the
national administrative machinery of the Faith. They, nevertheless, impart to
the deliberations of the National Assembly a universality which they would be
otherwise lacking, and give to its members a breadth of view which is their
duty to cultivate and foster. It is not uniformity which we should seek in the
formation of any National or Local Assembly. For the bedrock of the Bahá'í
administrative order is the principle of unity in diversity, which has been so
strongly and so repeatedly emphasized in the writings of the Cause. Differences
which are not fundamental and contrary to the basic teachings of the Cause
should be maintained, while the underlying unity of the administrative
order should be at any cost preserved and ensured. Unity, both of purpose and
of means, is, indeed, indispensable to the safe and speedy working of every
Assembly, whether local or national.
(From a letter dated 2 January 1934
written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to the National Spiritual Assembly of India
and Burma, published in "Dawn of a New Day"; The Compilation of
Compilations, vol. II, National Spiritual Assembly)
