All countries and societies change over time but few have experienced this so dramatically as India. The 2014 general election with its landslide victory for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and the leadership of Narendra Modi, revived an old debate: what is India? Is there a national identity which supersedes its cultural, social and economic diversity?
In 1888 the British colonial administrator John Strachey recognised that there was no such country as India (Box 1). The steps towards unification and independence from British rule in 1947 involved complex political negotiations and religious tensions. In a country of 1.3 billion people, 3,200 km in length from north to south, with an area of 3.3 million km2, there are bound to be contrasting geographical landscapes, both physically and socially. India is a nation of mountains, deserts, forests, sacred rivers, temples, cities and quite densely populated rural areas. It is also challenged by its diverse languages, religions, traditions and economies.
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