WORDI/2025/CRB/517 2025-06-05

Nehru to modi

On the morning of 15 August 1947, when Jawaharlal Nehru, heir to Mahatma
Gandhi, the Buddha and the European Enlightenment, raised the Indian
Tricolour on the ramparts of the Red Fort, the seventeenth-century palace
of Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, India was free to make experiments with
freedom.
In the seven decades since Independence, the country gradually changed from
Nehru’s democratic socialism to Narendra Modi’s democratic entrepreneurial
digital India, dealing with its internal contradictions by playing the game of
democracy and in the process becoming the sixth-largest global economy.
And with Chandrayaan exploring the Moon, a space nation was born.
India overlooks the Himalayas and the Indian Ocean, abridging Southeast
Asia with the Middle East. With its immense brainpower and young
demographics, India is geopolitically an indispensable nation. Indians play
the game of democracy any which way they can: through massive elections;
parliamentary debates and no-confidence motions; coalition forming and
horse-trading; hartals, bandhs, dharnas, fast-unto-death; and finally, when
nothing works, they knock at the doors of the Supreme Court.
India in a New Key attempts to offer an insight into questions like:
-How has India been experimenting with freedom to solve its socio-economic
problems?
-Can Modi—like Nehru—create a unified Indian consciousness?