There is a strange habit we Indians have developed over the decades. We look at each other not as fellow travellers on a civilisational journey, but as entries in a social spreadsheet. Caste. Creed. Community. Sub-community. Region. Language. Sub-language. It is as if we are forever trying to shrink a vast, ancient identity into neat little boxes that make political arithmetic easier but national belonging weaker.
And in doing so, we forget something far older, far deeper, and far more powerful than any of these labels – the spirit of Bharat.
Long before modern politics discovered the convenience of dividing people into vote banks, this land had already evolved a way of living that allowed extraordinary diversity to breathe under a shared civilisational sky. Bharat was never built on sameness. It was built on a cultural confidence that could absorb difference without losing its core. That is why philosophies that contradicted each other flourished side by side. That is why languages changed every few hundred kilometres, yet the emotional grammar of the people remained recognisably Indian.
Today, however, we are encouraged to see each other first through caste and creed. We are told that our primary loyalty must be to the fragment, not the whole. We are nudged to believe that we are victims before we are citizens, that we are categories before we are countrymen. The result is predictable: suspicion replaces trust, grievance replaces gratitude, and politics replaces patriotism.
The tragedy is not that caste and religion exist. They have existed for centuries and will continue to exist. The tragedy is that we have allowed them to become the main lens through which we see ourselves. When identity becomes narrower, imagination becomes smaller. When imagination becomes smaller, the nation becomes fragile.
The idea of Bharat is the antidote to this shrinking of the mind.
Bharat is not merely a geographical expression. It is a civilisational consciousness. It is the idea that despite our differences in worship, food, dress, dialect, and customs, we belong to a shared historical and cultural continuum. It is the understanding that our diversity is not a threat to unity but a reflection of it. Unity in Bharat is not uniformity; it is harmony.
When we call ourselves Bhartiya, we are not erasing our smaller identities. We are placing them in the right order. We are saying: yes, I may belong to a particular caste, a particular religion, a particular region – but above all, I belong to Bharat. That higher identity does not diminish the lower ones; it gives them meaning within a larger story.
Think about how powerful that shift is.
If I see myself primarily as a member of a caste, my world is limited to those who share that label. My fears, ambitions, and loyalties revolve around that circle. But if I see myself as Bharatiya, my circle expands to over a billion people. Suddenly, the success of a farmer in Punjab, a scientist in Bengaluru, a soldier on the border, or a sportsperson in the Olympics feels personal. Their victory becomes my victory. Their struggle becomes my concern.
That is nationhood. That is Bharat.
Unfortunately, modern politics often thrives on the opposite instinct. It rewards those who can sharpen divisions, not dissolve them. It encourages narratives of perpetual injustice without equally encouraging narratives of shared responsibility. It teaches people to negotiate with the nation instead of contributing to it.
But a nation cannot be built on negotiation alone. It must be built on a sense of belonging that is emotional, not transactional.
The freedom movement understood this. People from different castes, religions, regions, and linguistic backgrounds did not come together because they had resolved every social difference. They came together because they recognised a higher bond – the bond of a shared destiny. They were not fighting for a federation of fragments. They were fighting for a civilisational nation.
Somewhere along the way, we have started reducing that civilisational nation into a collection of interest groups.
When every issue is framed as ‘us versus them’, we forget that there is a larger ‘we’ that includes us all. When every policy is judged solely by which caste or community it benefits, we stop asking whether it strengthens the nation as a whole. When public discourse is dominated by identity anxieties, national purpose gets pushed to the margins.
The identity of Bharatiya restores that national purpose.
To say ‘I am Bharatiya’ is to accept that my rights are inseparable from my responsibilities. It is to understand that the nation is not an external provider but a shared inheritance. It is to recognise that while history may have created inequalities and wounds, the path forward lies in collective upliftment, not permanent fragmentation.
This identity also demands maturity. It asks us to rise above provocation. It asks us not to fall for every attempt to pit one group against another. It asks us to measure leaders not by how loudly they speak for our narrow identity, but by how sincerely they work for the broader good of the country.
Most importantly, it reminds us that Bharat is bigger than all our differences put together.
The rivers that flow across states do not carry caste certificates. The air we breathe does not check our religion. The soldiers who guard our borders do not ask the enemy which community they represent before they defend the nation. In moments of crisis – natural disasters, wars, pandemics – we instinctively rediscover our shared identity. Strangers help strangers, not because they share a surname, but because they share a country.
Why should that spirit appear only in emergencies? Why can it not guide our everyday politics and social life?
Bharatiya is not just a label. It is a call to consciousness. It is an invitation to see ourselves as heirs to one of the world’s oldest living civilisations, and as custodians of its future. It tells us that while caste and creed may describe parts of us, they do not define the whole of us.
The whole of us is Bharat.
If we can internalise that, truly and deeply, much of the bitterness in our public life will begin to lose its grip. We will still debate, disagree, and argue – as all vibrant societies do – but we will do so as members of one national family, not as permanent adversaries.
In the end, identities that divide are easy to manufacture. Identities that unite require vision. Bharatiya is that vision.
And perhaps it is time we stopped seeing each other through the narrow prisms of caste and creed, and started seeing each other as what we have always been at our best – one people, many expressions, one Bharat.
