“If there is one place on the face of earth where all the dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India.”
Romain Rolland managed to capture the essence of our country with these words quite perfectly. India is not really a country; it is a shared identity, a common consciousness of a billion people coexisting in a beautiful space. India, as a country has always been the torch bearer of tolerance which welcomes and even celebrates diversity with open arms. The world knows us as the melting pot of civilization.
However, sometimes we doubt our own predispositions- when the warm and welcoming Indian culture develops fault lines and there are questions regarding our inherent secularity which is enshrined in our constitution.
The first questions about secularity stem from the fact that India is also known as ‘Hindustan’, then why do we expect the country to be secular when it is a ‘land of the Hindus’. Actually, we are not. This video busts the myth about history behind the name Hindustan. It also reveals the official names of the country and why it is okay to expect the country to be secular and tolerant towards different religions.
