Nearly 45 million years ago, the Indian tectonic plate collided with Eurasia. The union between these earthen pieces bore giants – the Himalayas. These soaring temples of stone would decide the fate of Indians for millions of years. The Himalayan earth wrapped by the highest winds in the world would give birth to water. Glaciers turned into rivers that turned into Goddesses as Indians began to worship these daughters of the Himalayas. The great mountains would breathe the monsoon winds across the subcontinent as each exhale and inhale covered the soil in greenery. Fertile river basins would flourish as different cultures thrived in this petri dish of geography, which would eventually evolve into civilization.

Soon enough, altars of sacred fire would dot the landscape. Some chanted a magical tongue around this fire; others emblazoned the fire on their bodies as ascetics draped in saffron robes journeyed across the subcontinent seeking and teaching. Places became pilgrimages, and dirt became divine. Under the shadow of the Himalayas, its rivers, and its beauty, India was born.

It’s beautiful, isn’t it? This idea of “India,” a cultural, political, and civilizational concept was indeed shaped by Mother Nature herself (she’s nicer than the one in the Apple commercials, trust me). But the story is of course more complicated. Today this idea of India, or South Asia for some, is rife with political balderdash. India’s left continues to clamor about how India is an arbitrary union of states created out of happenstance in 1947. And yet the British East India Company didn’t get this memo. Nor have ancient travelers who called the country Indikē, Tianzhu, Hodu, Hind, Hindustan, and various other names that clearly do not translate to South Asia or a myriad of newly fashioned bureaucratic linguistic Indian states.

The idea of “India” is deeply rooted. Beyond just natural geologic borders, those carved by the Gods of earth and ocean, its people also developed a consciousness of kind. Āryavarta, Bhārata, Jambudvīpa… these names carry the weight of a subcontinent and its people. Despite rarely being politically consolidated, a civilization still spoke. And this is its story.

A Land Before Time

We can start with the first seedlings of India’s civilization. The Indus-Saraswati Civilization was spread across North and Western India, covering the modern regions of Sindh, Punjab, Gujarat, Haryana, and Western Uttar Pradesh. Their voices are now silent, and their writing is still a secret. Some posit them as speaking a Dravidian language, others as Sanskrit, others as a lost tongue, while finally, some say it was a mix of some or all of the above. Migrations before, during, and after occurred into, outside, and within the subcontinent just as they had everywhere else in the world. But what we’re more interested in today are the stories that these people told themselves. Ultimately, it’s the stories we tell that both make and differentiate mankind.

The Sumerians were said to have a name for them – Meluhha. Seals of the Meluhha were replete amongst Sumerian merchants; those same seals would be found in cities like Harappa in the Indus Valley. One of the first ports in the world, Lothal, sent these seals across the sea. Could this be the name of the entirety of the Indus-Saraswati Civilization? I’d assume not. At its greatest, the Indus-Saraswati Civilization was larger in area than nearly all other Bronze Age Civilizations combined and the most populous at that. Most likely, it would’ve been a vibrant mosaic of languages and ethnicities. Nonetheless, there are elements of continuity such as material culture, ritual structures, art, etc… across the space of the Indus-Saraswati Civilization but also across time with India today. This aspect of a stable dichotomy where differences are usually preserved or synthesized rather than eradicated is a cardinal aspect of Indian civilization.

Its direct successor (or possibly contemporary considering recent evidence), would be Vedic India, Āryavarta. Defined as the land between the Himalayas and the Vindhyas, the ultimate origins of Āryavarta and India itself rest in the syllables of Vedic Sanskrit chanted unbroken for millennia. Out of the Vedas would emerge a binding philosophy and culture that both assimilated and exalted cultures it touched across the Subcontinent. Rather than outright conquest and brutish submission of other peoples, the progenitors of the Vedas would invite those they met to participate in the great ritual of fire so central to their lives. New gods would be added to the pantheon, all seen as expressions of the same primordial divine. As Brahmins bricked fire into yajnas, Vedic culture would illuminate the land from those blessed embers.

But it was not just by the sword of the Kshatriya or shlok of the Brahmin that this culture, this Dharma spread. The Vedas mention great munis, draped in wind and fire traveling to far and unknown lands spreading the glory of the Gods. Contrary to the idea of Hinduism today, it began as a missionary faith, albeit one that absorbed and elevated Gods and rituals it came in contact with rather than banishing them into extinction.

This is where India truly begins to form. Like threads, disparate mantras were woven together into magnificent fabrics of ideas – the Samhitas, Brahmanas, Aranyakas, and Upanishads. These fabrics were then sewn together to make the garments of Indian ideology – the Vedas themselves. Different thinkers arranged and interpreted these garments into attires of a philosophy – Sankhya, Mimansa, Vedanta, Buddhism, Jainism, and so on. Constantly being replaced & interchanged over time as minds and societies evolved. This great amalgamation was undertaken by Maharishi Ved Vyas as he compiled the Vedas into a cohesive body of knowledge. The Vedas not only provided a common code, a Dharma, for India, but also enabled a dynamic flexibility, a spirit of debate, and a pluralism fostering commonality.

“Truth is One; the Wise call it by many names.”

-Rig Veda 1.164.46

Footprints of the Gods

Now arise the tales that calcify India, that is Bhārata. In the Rig Veda, a pivotal battle occurs on the banks of the River Jhelum, the Battle of the 10 Kings. The victor of the oldest recorded war in India was King Sudas of the Bharata tribe. Additionally, Jain and Puranic accounts mention a great king of the solar dynasty named Bharata, son of the Tirthankar or Vishnu avatar (depending on your version), Rishabha. Bharata’s ancestor was King Nabhi who is said to have been the first to give his name to India, formerly known as Nābhivarsha. Bharata’s conquest of India and renunciation of his kingdom bequeathed legend to his name and subsequently his name to India. In the Mahabharata, we have a Bharata of the lunar dynasty. Similarly, Bharata is said to have subdued the kings of Aryavarta and given his kingdom not to his sons, whom he saw as unfit, but instead to the son of the sage, Bharadwaj. A common modern quip is pointing to this as the establishment of Indian democracy. Bharata meaning “bearer,” would soon bear the name of India itself.

Whether it was the scion of the Sun or monarch of the Moon, the Vishnu Purana is unequivocal about what Bhārata, the country, constitutes:

“The country that lies north of the ocean and south of the snowy mountains is called Bhāratam; there dwell the descendants of Bharata.”

-Vishnu Purana 2.3.1

Beyond nomenclature, the Itihasa and Puranas would consist of legends across the Indian landmass. Lord Ram quested across the subcontinent in pursuit of his beloved, generating a multitude of tales tied to specific locations across India. Yet there was also an element of discovery in this journey. The Ramayana describes an air of mystique as a young Ram and Lakshaman trek through dark forests facing off against demons and befriending new peoples. The fog of war is dissipated by the time of the Mahabharata where kings from across India are detailed as taking part in the cataclysmic Kurukshetra War. We see a progression in the understanding of India in these epics with the Mahabharata functioning as an encyclopedia of ancient India. The Puranas round off this collection of India consciousness with a pride of leonine tales reinforcing the Itihasa. Altogether, the Vedas, Itihasa, and Puranas grant godliness to India’s physical features, flora, and fauna. An essential animism grips the land. Indians began to view not only their immediate geography as sacred, but also that of other Indians tens, hundreds, even thousands of miles away.

Axial Asceticism

Karl Jaspers, a 20th-century German philosopher, noticed a profound transformation in the 1st millennium BCE. He believed from 800 to 200 BCE, something changed across various civilizations in how humans viewed themselves & the world. He called this revolution the Axial Age.

In India, a series of mass religious and political changes emerged roughly around 1000 BCE. From the jungles of India emerged ascetic philosophers, fresh off their great meditation of the Upanishads, who would turn the wheel of Dharma once more. The Sramanas, descendants of those great Munis mentioned in the Vedas imparted new visions of society as well as the individual. Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism would dance together creating an ensemble of cultural motifs as each religion exchanged and cultivated concepts from the other. Vedicism and Sramanism would resemble the DNA of India, a double helix twisting across time connected by multiple ideas, multiplying and creating a lively family of values vibrantly debated over in ancient courts, some of the world’s first universities, and even the Indian dinner table today. How did this happen all of a sudden? Well, the answer is actually again at the dinner table, right under the crossfire of debate – rice.

As the Saraswati, the Vedas’ favorite river vanished, an exodus fled to the east. It is through the axe of the Aryan that the sea of Gangetic trees would part. The fertile wetlands of the middle and eastern Gangetic Plain would become the perfect locale for rice cultivation. The Gangetic soil began to weigh heavier with a population explosion from increased rice yields. Villages became cities which soon turned into states. The Mahajanapadas, ancient India’s 16 great city-states, were born and grew like children fed a steady supply of thick buffalo milk. We are now at the cusp of India’s first true empires.

Earlier kings of legend held the title of Chakravartin, meaning “wheel-turner” or “universal monarch.” Both Bharatas were emblazoned with the title. But it is the vision of Chanakya, a 4th century BCE scholar and royal advisor, that led to the first pan-Indian imperial polity. Chanakya dreamed of uniting India or as he called it – Jambudvīpa meaning “the island of the Indian blackberry.” As Chanakya installed the first Mauryan king, Chandragupta Maurya, on the throne of India’s greatest Mahajanapada, Magadha, a prophecy was set in motion. 

Centuries before, during the reign of Ajatashatru of that same Magadha, Lord Buddha was offered a mound of dirt by a boy as alms. Despite protests from his disciples, Lord Buddha graciously accepted as the boy pranced away happily and the smile of the Shakyamuni graced the horizon. When his disciples further questioned him, the Buddha lucidly prophesied that in the boy’s next life, he would conquer the entirety of Jambudvipa and become a chakravartin. That boy is said to have been the past life of Ashoka the Great.

From its nucleus in Magadha, Ashoka’s Mauryan Empire would sprawl across almost all of India. Like earlier Indian kings, this meant the building of roads, securing merchant guild routes, and upholding Dharma – all actions that promoted centralization across society. Ashoka would step fervently in stride as he instilled the Laws of Dhamma (Dharma) via rock edicts across the country. The principles of respecting others’ faiths, non-violence, reverence for Brahmins and Sramans, welfare of all subjects, and upholding Dhamma would be promoted and enforced by a religious police and bureaucracy. Monasteries manifested across India that evangelized Ashoka’s beloved Buddhist faith not just in India but far beyond it. Without sending a single soldier to the Orient or the Indies, a conquest of ideas belonged to monks whose only possessions were ragged robes and begging bowls.

Buddhism like its ideological predecessors also held the entirety of India in high esteem, not just the realm of the Ganga where Buddha lived and died. When Sri Lankan monks landed in Kanchipuram in the 7th century, they remarked how blessed they felt to be in the land of Buddha’s birthplace, Jambudvipa. Kanchipuram in today’s Tamil Nadu is 1,954 km from Lumbini, Buddha’s birthplace in modern-day Nepal. Various other foreign Buddhist pilgrims would echo this feeling of elation upon crossing the Himalayas or Indian Ocean as they stepped into the Indian subcontinent. For they saw Buddha in India and heard India in Buddha.

Nevertheless, the Mauryan Empire would be short-lived. Collapsing quickly after Ashoka’s passing, in its wake new wannabe chakravartins would surface but none would achieve the territorial expanse of the Mauryans. Yet the cities remained. Just as the heart brings blood into itself and pumps it across the body, cities attracted culture, cultivated it, and then spread it across India.

Beyond this political integrity of India, an ideological one moved from strength to strength. With Buddhism building upon the Hindu Upanishads, it would soon eclipse Hinduism itself in many parts of India. While of course, the faiths remained syncretic amongst the lay, an energetic debate was present in elite and scholarly circles.

Hinduism would ultimately answer back definitively. Shortly after Buddha’s passing, a sage named Badarayana assembled the Brahma Sutras. The first fount yet also the final piece of Vedanta. While the much earlier Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita formed the core of Vedanta, Badarayana’s elucidations on the aforementioned texts allowed a packaging of thought into the gift of a coherent philosophy. In the Brahma Sutras were early critiques of Buddhism and Jainism. This rhetoric would be truly realized about a thousand years later, with the incarnation of Adi Shankara.

Primus Inter Pares Peninsularum

Contrary to insidious academics and religious partizans, Swami Ramakrishnananda, a disciple of Ramakrishna Paramhansa, notes an illustrious philosophical evolution from Lord Buddha to Adi Shankara to Ramanuja with each building upon the former. He does not view the conflict between Vedicism and the Sramanic faiths as akin to violent ideological wars such as Protestant-Catholics, Sunni-Shias, or pineapple on pizza. A scholar, a believer, a practitioner, Ramakrishnanda recognized the commonalities between these 2 beautiful strains of Indian thought. Like the sun and the moon, Vedicism and Sramanism defined the days of Indian history. This tripartite doctrine that emerged from Buddha, Shankara, and Ramanuja would form the philosophical foundation of India to this day.

The ascetic orders of Buddha birthed a great deal of scholars. Opposite to them were the dominant Mimamsa philosophy of Hinduism. A stalemate at best and grinding defeat at worst for the Mimansins was underway. Enter Adi Shankara. With a prodigious study of Vedic lore and scripture, Shankara went to philosophical war on the chariot of Badarayana’s Vedanta. His first victims were the Mimamsins who would be summarily defeated in famous debates across India by this legendary ascetic. But there is a key aspect of these victories that many ignore. Shankara’s opponents would label him as a crypto-Buddhist. This is the genius of Advaita Vedanta. Advaita reconciled Buddhist and Vedic thought to such a degree that his next nemesis to be subdued would be the Buddhists themselves. He established 4 monasteries across the diamond-shaped Indian subcontinent. These institutions propagated a common elite philosophy across India ringing the bell of oneness, of Advaita. Shankara brought more victory to the Vedic faith than any king before him, with his choicest weapon simply being his word.

A few centuries later, another southerner would revolutionize Hinduism and culminate ages of religious innovation in Tamil Nadu – Ramanuja. The earliest songs of the Sangam Era mention the Vedas, Vishnu, Indra, and other Vedic motifs and gods. Far away from invasions in north India, Tamil Nadu would serve as an uninterrupted incubator for Indian culture. Its most prolific offspring would be the Bhakti Movement. Vaishnavite Alwars and Shaivite Nayanars would be the biggest patrons of this transformational devotional movement. It would climax with Ramanuja as he formulated Vishishtadvaita Vedanta or qualified non-dualism. Ramanuja’s emphasis on devotional Bhakti would help uplift and empower members of the lower castes. While Ramanuja still adhered to caste rituals at large, he inspired disciples who would carry his message like the monsoon wind across all of India raining down devotional hymns to all strata of society. Now, more modern ideas of Hinduism as well as India began to emerge. If Adi Shankara horizontally united India, Ramanuja did so vertically.

Sultanates & Swarajya

Chinese pilgrims to India did not note any violence between Hindus and Buddhists during their visits. Barring a few exceptions, Indians had no problem bowing to Buddha or Bhairav, Madhav or Mahavir, and so on. The concept of religion itself was very different from modern Western or medieval Middle Eastern notions. This is why the arrival of Islam caused such a shock. An “Other” was truly recognized.

While early Indians had the concept of “Mleccha” denoting people who did not follow Vedic lifestyles, there were no mass mandates for violence against them. This contrasted with the levels of religious persecution and conflict that appeared as Islam entered India. Waves of Islamic invasions from Central Asia would leave parts of India as wastelands. Temples were destroyed and looted, Hindus were enslaved and carried off to the steppe, and many Indians were faced with the choice of conversion or death. Nomadic horse archers invading from the grasslands of central Asia were a regular feature for India. And indeed each wave was laced with cruelty. But the Scythians, Huns, and other invaders who came to India prior assimilated, becoming Indians themselves as they bowed to Indian gods. But this recent bout of Muslim Turks was different.

Across their own chronicles, Islamic invaders gloat about the terror they wrought upon India and its unbelievers. A holy war envelops each campaign into the subcontinent. The killings of Hindus and the looting of their temples are recounted with glee and pride. When Turks actually started to settle in India, they would adopt a caste system of their own, this time based on ethnicity with Turks and other Muslim Middle Eastern ethnicities at the top. They would not tolerate being ordered around by a dark, wretched Indian even if they were their Muslim brother in faith. Beneath converted Muslims was the mass of Hindus who frivolously obsessed over their own increasingly calcifying caste system.

As the Mughals entered the fray, they would secure alliances with a number of Hindu kings via marriage. With each generation, their skin became darker, their eyes wider, their tastes more piquant. The Mughals would expand across India with Aurangzeb mirroring Ashoka in political expanse. India or Hindustan as the Mughals called it had finally been united once again. Yet the Mughals did not consider themselves Hindustani. Hell, they didn’t even call themselves Mughals! These foreigners from Fergana anointed themselves as the Gurkaniyas, a reference to their Uzbek ancestor, Timur, who married into the family of Genghis Khan and became the “son-in-law.” This is best exemplified by Aurangzeb, the most Indian Mughal in blood yet the most Turkic in bigotry towards the faith of the majority of his ancestors. His genocides across the subcontinent and antipathy towards his “fellow” countrymen would finally raise Indians out of their parochial stupor and begin a crusade to throw out this regime of Indians in body but Turks in mind.

While great kings such as Rana Sanga, Krishna Devaraya, Lachit Borphukan, Mihira Bhoja, and others all resisted the Islamic advance, there is one ruler who stands out. The Tiger of the Deccan, Shivaji Bhonsle possessed a vision that would become the prototype of Indian nationalism centuries later. At 15 years of age, Shivaji sought to create a “Hindavi Swaraj” or a country based on the self-rule of Hindus. This is a stark ideological departure from previous Hindu kings primarily attached to land or caste with a recent exception being from the still smoldering ruins of an adjacent Vijayanagara, an empire that in many ways is an ideological antecedent for the Marathas.

After a bit of dancing between vassal and rebel for the Adilshahi Sultanate and Mughal Empire, Shivaji launched his mission for self-rule. What initially began as a territorial tussle soon evolved into a war for survival as Aurangzeb sought to annihilate the Marathas from root to branch. The Western Ghats would soon roar “Har, Har Mahadev!” as Maratha guerrilla tactics made the hills appear to have eyes and bushes possessing swords sharpened by the armor of Mughal soldiers. The war would drain both the coffers and spirit of the Mughal Empire. With the Mughals in retreat, the Marathas began a marathon in pursuit.

The reality of Maratha sovereignty would strive for Shivaji’s dream Hindavi Swaraj as the Marathas looked to free the Ganga and the Indus from the clutches of those whom they saw as foreigners of the land and oppressors of their religion. Shivaji would appeal to Hindu kings to rebel against the “Turk.” His descendants would reaffirm this call as they blew the conch of war becoming a saffron sea across the subcontinent. Marathas kings and queens would rebuild Hindu temples and reinvigorate Hindu sentiments across their empire with Ahilyabai Holkar being particularly charitable in the restoration of Hindu temples.

This sounds run of the mill but it must be considered just how brutally Aurangzeb and other Muslim rulers treated Hindus. There are almost no pre-Islamic era Hindu temples left in the northern 3/4 of the Indian Subcontinent. The holiest sites of Hinduism have been defiled and destroyed. A people were broken, scattered into squabbles over caste and community. The Marathas would indeed fight other Hindus as well, but the net result was a freedom to practice the indigenous faith returning again to many parts of India. Additionally, the Hindu identity itself grew stronger out of this era of persecution, and as a result, so did the Indian identity. At this point, the Marathas were poised for a Reconquista.

Unfortunately, this party was abruptly cut short by a new entrant.

The Jewel in the Crown

With the Marathas enduring a catastrophic result at the Third Battle of Panipat, an opening formed. Pink men dressed in funny coats who had no business in the Indian heat began to show up at the edge of Indian waters. They wanted to trade.

They were obsessed with measuring. Their curiosity was amusing to many local Indians, but these pink men or angrezis (Englishmen) would pay no mind and would continue to write, continue to exchange. Some parts of India were rough for them so they would hire local security in addition to bringing their own foreign units. They paid better than the permanently drunk nawab or opium-addled raja and were much more reliable. The English were rivaling the mercantile castes in their money-making abilities. Arcane foreign financial methods and obsessive measuring grew their rich chests as if they were employing a Miami-based plastic surgeon. From the rattle of the coin purse eventually grew the rattle of sabers. Humble operations in Calcutta in the early 18th century would transform into a financial juggernaut that possessed the most fearsome army in India by 1815. The British East India Company combined financial power, military discipline, and most importantly, institutional brilliance to conquer India in its entirety. The Anglo was the new Ashoka.

Some say that the British “made” India with their imperialism. If you’ve read this far, you know that’s not the case. But why the British are important in the idea of India is twofold.

Firstly, British bureaucracy and administration proved to be a better way to organize government than many earlier Indian editions. This doesn’t point to an inherent superiority of the English or the deficiency of Indians, it’s just to say that there is something special about how the British organized society and state. It’s one of the biggest reasons the British Empire succeeded. Compared to many Indian crowns, the British East India Company brought better rule of law, less corruption, and even better public infrastructure as more reliable transport meant easier trade. Money that was spent on a kingdom’s defense and courtly excesses was now routed to commercial pursuits. Early days proved more peaceful under the East India Company, but over time the operations became increasingly extractive. More consequential though was the eventual meddling in internal Indian affairs and society. This combined with the aforementioned economic extraction would bring tumult to the British Raj.

In the aftermath of the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny, the British grew a penchant for the stick rather than carrots. Increased onus on divide-and-rule tactics would find a perfect foil in the caste system. Caste was bureaucratized like never before as the British used policies to discriminate against certain castes and create enmity between different ones. Religion too was used to powerful effect with the bloody conclusion of incitement being the Partition of India. This is not to say there wasn’t already caste and religious conflict before the British, but the bureaucratization of these identities added new economic and political dimensions to these social battles. 

“One advantage of caste has been mentioned to me by British army officers: ‘If it were not for the caste system, which breaks the people up into irreconcilable sections, England would not be able to hold India for six months.”

-WILLIAM T. ELLIS IN THE EVENING STAR, 1907

To uphold and enforce these divisions, the British would hire many Indians in their bureaucracy. This is where the ever-reviled “babu” was born. British service provided a path for economic and social mobility. Yet it ended up being the children of these babus, these petit bourgeoisie of Indian society that would be the harbingers of the end of British rule.

Herein lies the second importance and primary irony of British rule in regards to the idea of India. For British training and education not only made Indians more aware of the colonial injustices they were participating in but also made them more cosmopolitan and individualistic. British Enlightenment ideals brushed against salt-of-the-earth Indian patriotism causing a new generation of Indian lawyers and professionals to organize and revolt.

This however was not the only river of revolution. Just as the Himalayas have many daughters, so did many sons sacrifice for the Indian Independence Movement. Besides the swell of bureaucrats turned belligerents, a great reservoir of latent revolutionary sentiment was being tapped. That old call of Swarajya.

From the Raj to the Republic

Bengal was the beachhead for British operations in India. It would soon become the most developed and with it a cultural explosion came to fore. This Bengali Renaissance contained the seeds of India’s independence movement as scholars, writers, and gurus began to view themselves not just as subjects but sons of the soil.

Monks such as Aurobindo and Vivekananda appealed across the spectrum of Hindu thought as justification for Indian rebellion. From the quaint animism of regarding Indian land as divine to the grand spiritual nationalism of Vedanta to the selfless sacrifice of Yoga, Vivekananda and Aurobindo infused Dharma into the quest for India. The Bhagavad Gita became the book of revolution as millennia-old passages of a reluctant warrior on the battlefield transforming into a force of Godly will and righteous duty came to life.

Chandranath Basu, a Bengali writer no doubt influenced by the Bengali sages who espoused the Indian revolution, would coin this conception of Indian nationalism as “Hindutva.” Later on and across the country, the Marathi revolutionary, Veer Savarkar, would expand upon Hindutva as a comprehensive Hindu Nationalist vision of a free India. Ideologies and their adherents were not cut and dry just like today. In the maelstrom of mutiny, even those who did not profess an explicit image of a Hindu Nationalist India were influenced by intellectual giants like Aurobindo, Vivekananda, and Savarkar.

This inspiration would lead to Indian revolutionaries watering their motherland with blood as they offered their heads to Mother India. Violent agitations and actions began to spark across a tinder-laden land from all communities. Subhash Chandra Bose, Bhagat Singh, Chandrasekhar Azad, Veer Savarkar, Ashfaqulla Khan, and others would begin a violent uprising to free not just their little localities, but the totality of India. A true India-wide consciousness was calcifying.

To quell this deluge of discontent, the British would give more representation and space for Indians to discuss their political rights and issues. Allan Hume, a retired British civil servant, would form the Indian National Congress. This would later become the vehicle of freedom for India’s elites, many of whom were the descendants of those earlier babus. 

The INC leaders were comparatively detached from caste and religion versus other Indians. They began to form a composite civic nationalism. At the fringes and across the fence of the organization though, there were those who didn’t agree with this vision. The Muslim League of Muhammed Ali Jinnah rejected this secular vision and successfully campaigned for a separate Muslim state, Pakistan. The Hindu Nationalists did not have as much success. Despite or perhaps there being a distinct Hindu character to most strains of the Indian Independence movement, the INC successfully won over most Hindus and only a minority of Muslims. The violent intransigency of Muslim elites led to a capitulation of the Indian narrative back to its Hindu roots. Still, Gandhi and his acolytes strongly emphasized the secular and composite nature of Indian nationalism at the time; hence India would be born as a secular republic.

As you’ve seen thus far, most of the ideological justification and cultural unity of India has already taken place, but the political manifestation of “India” is another beast entirely. What is special about Mahatma Gandhi is how he solidified a united bulwark stretching across so many different Indian castes, religions, and ethnicities against British occupation. This level of political mobilization was unseen in history. It’s quite possible that Gandhi was the most admired and revered living person ever during his lifetime. This unity was integral to the creation of the Indian Republic, despite the secession of Pakistan. Sardar Patel oversaw a breakneck Bismarkian campaign for integrating 11 major provinces and 560 princely states into a single country. Soon enough, Nehru would be delivering a legendary speech describing India’s “Tryst with Destiny” as a civilization reincarnated into a republic.

It was nothing short of a miracle.

Gandhi would be killed by a Hindu Nationalist shortly after and then a long odyssey of Indian Politics would define how India progressed. The most ironic part about the republic’s history is that we are at an age where Hindu Nationalism is not just resurgent, but becoming the dominant form of Indian Nationalism today. Swarajya harkens again. But that is a tale for another day.

India’s formulation into a Westphalian nation-state is a momentous milestone. But as we’ve seen in the past, this is just the latest chapter of its story. Nehru likened India to a palimpsest, a written document that has been effaced with layers upon layers of new writing yet much of the old still remains. Indeed, India is a civilization-state. It has its own modes of modernity, pluralism, and innovation. It uses its traditions to advance into an authentically Indian modernity. This is why ISRO’s scientists conduct traditional rituals at an ancient temple before successfully sending India to the dark side of the moon. This is why India simultaneously pursues the rebuilding of temples and also creates the most advanced FinTech infrastructure on the planet in India Stack. This is why the current government allocates money toward preserving traditional knowledge systems while also creating more physical infrastructure than all previous administrations combined. India can do both.

That I think is the core of India – embracing dichotomies. Being comfortable with differences and not letting them devolve into destruction. For India to continue, enough of its participants need to strike this balance, believing in an ideology that can digest this diglossia of unity and diversity. As India experiences a new urbanization phase, we will see a similar churn to periods in the past. What this results in is anyone’s guess; but to remain together, to keep integrity, India must uphold an omnipresent element across its history. That indivisible substance with so many translations and explanations that can never truly capture its essence. The origin, order, and core of India. That is Dharma.

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“Friends, riches and grains are highly honoured in this world. But mother and motherland are superior even to heaven.”

-Valmiki Ramayana 6:124:17