Unity in diversity is what we have read and heard all our lives whenever the discussion is about Bharat and its culture and the civilisation. Most countries in the world are based on some kind of uniformity, be it the language, race, religion, or ethnicity, but Bharat is probably the only country in the world that defies this logic of uniformity and contains in its boundaries every kind of diversity imaginable to humans. Different races, ethnicities, skin colours of all hues, languages of all sorts, so much so that if you travel through this land, you will find a change in culture every 100 kms, the way people dress, speak and eat changes every 50 kms. And still this nation has survived for millennia, not as a political entity but as a civilisation, as an idea, as a way of life. What is this way of life that gives this country its foundational strength and helps it survive all kinds of onslaught from barbaric invaders to colonial conquests?
'India is no more a united nation than the Equator,’ Churchill remarked in the House of Commons in 1931, echoing a prevailing Western view that India was a continent of peoples held together only by imperial rule. A Western mind was not able comprehend India's diversity, it's actually very counterintuitive and yet to live in contradictions comes very easily to an Indian mind. Five people in a family may worship five different gods, follow five different traditions, and yet they live under one roof without facing any kind of conflict with each other. So, the question again is what makes this unity in diversity possible? The unification of uniformity is very logical and easy to maintain, but coexisting with tremendous diversity is the consequence of a civilisation that places individual freedom above collective uniformity.
From the extreme theism of Bhakti to the uncompromising materialism of Charvaka, the Indian tradition spans the entire spectrum of human thought. Within the same civilizational space arose paths that worshipped a personal God, dissolved God into an impersonal absolute, treated God as irrelevant to liberation, or rejected metaphysics altogether in favour of lived experience. Mystics, logicians, ascetics, householders, skeptics, and materialists argued not at the margins but at the very centre of intellectual life. This ability to hold contradiction without anxiety, to allow belief and disbelief, devotion and doubt, transcendence and earthliness to coexist, gave Indian thought its distinctive depth, resilience, and continuity across millennia.
Yet, beneath this vast diversity of thought lay a single, unshakable anchor. Every idea, method, and tradition, no matter how sharply they disagreed with one another, was ultimately judged on one criterion alone: liberation. Whether called Moksha or Mukti, it signified the individual’s freedom from bondage, ignorance, and suffering. The disagreements were never about the value of freedom itself, but about the path that led to it. In that sense, Indian philosophy began with a shared destination already assumed, as if the answer had been given in advance, and the task left to generations was to discover, test, and refine the many possible ways of arriving there.
We must find a new way that can resist conformity imposed either by external ideas or by internal pressures, while at the same time restoring greater vibrancy and diversity. Let this land remain a chaotic forest, sustained by an order that grows from within, rather than be trimmed into a well-maintained garden shaped by imposed design.