Increasingly, one hears people talk about how India is different from Bharat. There seems to be confusion over which of the terms represent 'real' India. India is English. Bharat is about regional languages. India is urban. Bharat is rural. English media caters to India. Regional media caters to Bharat. India values Western ideals. Bharat upholds traditional thoughts. India belongs to the rich and powerful. Bharat is of the poor simple folk.

India’s political leaders, whose children work hard to belong to India, but whose vote banks are located in Bharat, endorse this discourse. American and European academicians also endorse it. If they have Right-wing leanings they see India as global and western and Bharat as feudal. If they have Left-wing leanings they see India as the elitist oppressor and Bharat as the hungry oppressed. Both fiction and non-fiction authors who seek to decode India for the world endorse this divide. Even businesspeople and consumer experts speak of this divide but prefer referring to India as India 1 and Bharat as India 2.