India, 75 years later

On August 15, 1947, the day the Republic of India (भारत गणराज्य, Bhārat Gaṇarājya in Hindi) declared its independence, its prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, delivered a solemn speech in which he promised that the new nation, which would stretch from the Himalayas to the southern tip of the Hindustani peninsula, would build a “prosperous, democratic and progressive” society.

In 1976, a constitutional amendment added that the republic – which until then had only been governed by the Congress Party, the political patrimony of the Nehru dynasty – was also “socialist and secular”. Many listened to the words of the pandit (wise in Sanskrit) with skepticism. Winston Churchill, who wrote that India was merely a “geographical term,” called Mohandas Gandhi, among other things, a “half-naked fakir” and a “malevolent subversive.” Hindu polytheism believed, was a “bestial religion”, typical of a barbarian people.

In 1947, India included territories hitherto under colonial administration and 565 principalities that ruled – on paper – maharajas Hindus and nabobs Muslims who lived in sumptuous palaces, given over to luxury and excess pretending to be sovereign, when it was the rah imperial the one that maintained the army and preserved internal order.

«India was not a real country but “32 separate nations” and united only by the railway tracks and stations built by the British colonialists»

Churchill was not alone in believing that balkanization was the fate of the subcontinent. Former Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Kwan Yew once said that India was not a true country but “32 separate nations” and linked only by the tracks and railway stations built by British colonialists. The constitution recognizes 22 official languages: Hindi, Bengali, Nepali, Sanskrit, Tamil, Urdu, Telugu…

anarchy that works

History proved neither of them right. Since 1947 multi-ethnic states and empires have disappeared –Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union– and others have broken up (Sudan, Pakistan). But 75 years later, the Indian mosaic has preserved its territorial integrity and its parliamentary and federal institutions despite separatist tensions in Kashmir, a Muslim-majority region.

India is an almost lonely democracy – the largest in the world – in a region dominated by military or one-party regimes (China, Myanmar, Thailand, Afghanistan) or illiberals (Pakistan, Bangladesh). India, however, has an electoral system similar to the British one (winner takes all) that gives enormous power to the governors (chief minister), elected rajas of feudal political lordships.

As Sumit Ganguly writes in Foreign Policy, important court verdicts and sentences rarely dare to antagonize power. The media denounces scandals of corruption and abuse, but the State places strict limits on editors and journalists with draconian laws against sedition and contempt, many of them of colonial origin.

«Analysts often oscillate between diagnoses that go from the “next China” to warning that India is a demographic time bomb»

Despite its structural burdens –corruption, inequality…– after being John F. Kennedy’s ambassador in New Delhi, John Kenneth Galbraith said that he trusted India because its “anarchy worked”. Analysts often oscillate between diagnosing the “next China” and warning that India is a demographic time bomb.

But as almost always, the truth is more nuanced. When Narendra Modi, who ruled Gujarat with an iron fist (2001-2014), began his first term in 2014, India was the 10th largest economy in the world. Since then, GDP has grown by 40%, second only to China (53%) among the world’s major economies. This year it will be 8%, the highest figure of all of them, according to IMF forecasts.

At that rate, by 2027 it will be the fifth largest economy in the world with a GDP of almost five trillion dollars at exchange rates and sometime in the next decade it will be the third largest, ahead of Japan. The capitalization of its stock markets is already the fourth largest, only behind those of the United States, China and Japan.

At the technological forefront

India is reducing informality by encouraging banking through digital payment systems that channel state aid: 270,000 million dollars since 2017 in direct bank transfers to 950 million people, which links them to the tax and financial system. According to The Economist, the greater collection and the displacement of global supply chains outside of China, give reason to the electoral slogans of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which promise “minimum government, maximum governance”. But clientelism has a price.

Public spending has brought the fiscal deficit to 10% of GDP and the public debt to 87%. India has on its side its powerful software and information technology sector, which has doubled in size in the last decade. Its current revenue exceeds 230,000 million dollars annually, twice as much as in 2012.

India is the fifth largest exporter of digital services, employing five million Indians, many of whom are computer engineers and programmers. Today, the motorway network is 50% more extensive than in 2014. Since that year, the number of passengers on internal flights and mobile phone users have doubled to 783 million.

India has, however, a pending subject: the manufacturing industry. Its exports of goods account for only 1.9% of the world total. The 20 largest Indian companies –Tata, Adani, Reliance Industries, JSW…–, responsible for 50% of corporate cash flows, plan to invest 250,000 million dollars in the next five to eight years in chemical, semiconductor and ion battery projects -lithium. The bell Make in India has managed to attract Renault-Nissan, Huyndai, Dell, Samsung and Foxconn, among other multinationals, to the industrial parks of Chennai (Tamil Nadu).

National-Hinduism

The new India has a dark side: the Hindu supremacism of the BJP. India is home to 200 million Muslims, 15% of the population, but Modi does not have a single one in his cabinet. In the Sansad (Parliament) only 5% of the representatives are usually Muslim. The government wants to impose Hindi, which is only spoken by less than half of Indians, in public schools.

Outside the walls of the Red Fort in New Delhi, on August 15 Modi made only passing mention of Gandhi and instead praised a dozen anti-British leaders and armed movements. “We are the people who see Shiva (one of the gods of the Hindu trinity) in every living being,” he said to underline his religiosity, which his critics consider opportunistic. According to former Prime Minister Morarji Desai, Hinduism is a faith that admits multiple interpretations of its scriptures and various paths to spiritual salvation, so it is absurd, he says, to try to pigeonhole it into a dogma.

“India is home to 200 million Muslims, 15% of the population, but Modi does not have a single one in his cabinet. In the Sansad (Parliament) only 5% of the representatives are usually Muslims»

National-Hinduism is contagious. RRR (rise, roar, revolt), the highest grossing movie in the history of Indian cinema, has also swept Netflix, presenting two leaders of the anti-colonial resistance in the twenties with a profusion of violence, drums and dancers and flags.

The government has banned the hijab, the Islamic headscarf, in colleges and universities and calls to prayer from the minarets of mosques. For the independence holidays, the government pardoned 11 prisoners serving time for raping a Muslim woman and murdering 14 of her relatives in 2002 during riots in Gujarat.

Thus, it is not surprising that critics of Modi say that India is only the most populous country that holds elections. Sweden’s V-Dem Institute defines his system as “electoral autocracy” while Freedom House considers it a “partly free” country. In 2019, his 37% vote gave the BJP an absolute majority in the Sansad.

Double game?

Hindu neo-nationalism, however, has not deflected Indian foreign policy from its traditional non-alignment. New Delhi shows no interest in being like Japan, South Korea or Australia even though it integrates with them and the United States the ATVan informal alliance to contain China in the Asia-Pacific.

“Hindu Neonationalism, However, Has Not Diverted Indian Foreign Policy From Its Traditional Non-Alignment”

Modi has not criticized Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or joined the sanctions against Moscow. This year India participated with China, Syria, Mongolia, Algeria, Armenia, Laos, Nicaragua, Belarus and five other countries in the Vostok-2022 maneuvers (September 1-7) in areas near the Okhotsk Sea under the command of the head of state Russian major, General Valery Gerasimov. The exercises deployed 50,000 troops, 5,000 armored personnel carriers, and 140 aircraft and 60 warships. Moscow supplied the troops with vehicles, light weapons and ammunition. China brought its own weaponry. In October 2018, Modi signed a $5.43 billion deal with Vladimir Putin to buy the Russian S-400 anti-missile system.