If Bharat is an allusion to its roots, India is represented by the Banyan shoots

What is the difference between India and Bharat? The Constitution calls this country, “India, that is Bharat”. On the face of it, India is the name that the world uses for us, while Bharat is an ancient name that we once used for our land. But is the distinction that simple?

In reality, India and Bharat are more than two names. They represent two very distinct approaches to progress. This country has been known by different names in history. Bharat, Hind, Hindustan -- each of these names reflects society of a certain epoch in our past, but it is India that is our current reality and our future.

At 75, our India is fairly young for a country. As former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi once said in a speech to world leaders, "I am young, and my country is young".

“Young” because in 1947, we created a new country. This country did not possess the landmass that reflected the full extent of the Indic civilisation. It retained its Indic heritage, even as it embraced new values.

India after independence was a veritable thaali as Shashi Tharoor has observed. Indeed, we created a country in which the best ideals from our past – scientific temper that invented the zero, the Tana-bana of cultures and religions, the placing of duty and justice (dharma) over the pursuit of power… sat alongside and eventually mixed with the most forward-looking ideas from the world – equality of the sexes, freedom of expression, human rights and equality under the law.

Hence through our Constitution, we, the people, created a country that made men and women equal under the law. We created a state that acknowledged that all humans are born equal and hence abolished untouchability. We created a country where every citizen was entitled to the same fundamental rights. We created a country that gave voting rights to all citizens – universal adult franchise – from day one of its sovereignty. We created a republic where the rulers are answerable and replaceable. We created a democracy where the praja became the raja. Yes, we have a long history… but in creating India, we made history.

There had been many empires in the subcontinent prior to the British, but in nearly all of them, one or another ethnic or linguistic or religious community dominated the others, or was favored by the rulers. But post-1947, India became the first country in the subcontinent’s history to accord equal rights to all citizens irrespective of their identity. Making pluralism the bedrock of our national identity, in a world where homogeneity of ethnicity, religion and language were the markers of nationhood, was an audacious decision by our founding fathers and mothers.

There had never been a natively heterogeneous, pluralistic democracy of this size in the world, before India emerged on the scene. And we have since defied every prediction that this union of peoples and principalities will fail. Why did we succeed?

Because even as Bharat evokes our heritage of diversity, our invention -- India -- turned diversity into our legacy. We did this by ensuring protection of this diversity in law and by instilling the idea of "unity in diversity" in the minds of our people, thanks to the efforts at National Integration initiated by Jawaharlal Nehru.

As a result, we've had Presidents and Prime Ministers that came from nearly all communities in the country. Our elected leadership is supported by a civil service and we are secured by armed forces, all of which consist of professionally- recruited men and women, who are as diverse as the population they serve. Thus, safeguarding pluralism is a promise that India has delivered to its people for 75 years. More importantly, India will not be able to make any other promise, whether on economy or security, without safeguarding pluralism.

It is no coincidence that our national tree is the Banyan. If Bharat is an allusion to its roots, India is represented by the shoots of the Banyan that endlessly propagate its values and provide shade and shelter for one and all to thrive.

There is much work to be done for the people of India before the centenary of our independence, but progress can only be accomplished by looking ahead and not by looking back. Bharat speaks of our past, but India represents our future.