New Delhi, Oct. 2 -- The real risk is a single story, homogenization at the cost of diversity.

Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie, in her brilliant TED talk, put it succinctly: "Show people as one thing over and over again, and that's what they become." She was pointing to the risks and dangers of a single story. People have many layers of existence, and the mind creates meaning for survival, in other words a unique story for each, and that too multilayered. In fact, the brain seems to be doing exactly this, creating stories in the head, but always based on the context and condition of the person.

But as society scales up, from individuals to nations to religions, the validity of multiple stories seems to be ignored, and a single stor...