Everything exists in countless variants. India is not just a country, it is an adventure, one in which all avenues are open and everything is possible. The result is unique. Many observers have been astonished by India's survival as a pluralist society. But India could hardly have survived as anything else.
Pluralism is a reality that emerges from the very nature of India.
One of the few generalizations that can safely he made about India is that nothing can be taken for granted here. That anomaly is easily explained, for what is today Pakistan was part of India until it was partitioned in 1947. Yet each explanation breeds another anomaly. Pakistan was created as a homeland for India's Muslims, but from 1971 till very recently there were more Muslims in India than in Pakistan. With diversity emerging from its geography and inscribed in its history, India was made for pluralism.