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The US/EU would be well placed to appreciate that India will not necessarily conform to a Western template for democracy and embrace foreign “liberal” orthodoxies. That’s because India has its own unique culture, history, ambitions and challenges. https://twitter.com/ConstantinoX/status/1350778835822804994
The US/EU would be well placed to appreciate that India will not necessarily conform to a Western template for democracy and embrace foreign “liberal” orthodoxies. That’s because India has its own unique culture, history, ambitions and challenges. https://twitter.com/ConstantinoX/status/1350778835822804994
Culture: India is the world’s only living civilizational state. It’s knowledge systems cover diverse philosophies. The people inherit an acceptance of heterogeneity in ideas, traditions and lifestyles. Moreover, the culture has remained resilient despite invasions/ colonization.
Within the political context of the modern nation state, Indians value democracy because “Hinduism” places utmost importance on individual agency through the inalienable duty to chart one’s own Karma by practicing one’s own Dharma. India’s democratic resilience stems from this.
History: Despite efforts of foreign/local neocolonialist “scholars” to stifle the truth, the reality of what India once was and is capable of, shines through. The abundance of factors of production - labor, land, capital and innovation - underpinned India’s position in the world.
No country has a memory of invasions, pillage, conversions, secessionism and annihilation of education systems, as India has. The imposition of a Western matrix of secularism on a natively pluralistic people of a country with that legacy, has created assymetries and inequality.
Challenges: As a developing nation of 1.4 bn with ethnic, cultural and linguistic variety and a complex history, it is faced with unique challenges. Indians in their wisdom, will find a way to make democracy work to tackle them since there isn’t a real corollary in another state.
Does this make India insular? No. For millennia, it has engaged with the world, trading and exchanging ideas. Indians can choose for themselves lessons that can be drawn from the US/EU to apply at home. It certainly doesn’t need lectures based on faulty assumptions.
Ambitions: India is likely to become the third largest economy by 2030-35 and the second largest by 2050. This will not happen because it listens to a think-tank analyst claiming that human rights in India are not up to the mythical and hypocritical standard set by the US/EU.
Factors of production are being harnessed. Against this, the institutional framework is meant to protect the citizens and encourage quality growth. Critically, changes to a rigid system - a colonial hand down - are based on local needs and aspirations not shared by other nations.
In summary: India will fix itself. It has always done so, through updating its traditions, amalgamating cultures and embracing new political systems. This is why it’s the only living civilizational state. Meanwhile, US/EU think-tanks needn’t see ghosts where there are none.
