Covid-19 and the ‘idea of India’
Modi seems not to be concerned with the highly critical coverage in the Western press of his handling of the pandemic
The writer is a former caretaker finance minister and served as vice-president at the World Bank
For several decades after what is now Pakistan was carved out of Britain’s Indian colony as a predominantly Muslim state, India was seen as an example to be followed. While it proved impossible for what was original Pakistan to build a viable nation-state out of ethnic diversity, India was able to absorb much greater ethnic, language, castes and religious differences and create a functioning national system. A quarter century after becoming independent, Pakistan lost its “eastern wing” that separated and emerged as Bangladesh. Now, more than half a century later, after the breakup of original Pakistan, India is fast becoming a case-study of politics that demonstrates how work against the welfare of the citizenry can destroy nationhood. Instead of practising what the historian Sunil Khilnani had called the “idea of India” the country is moving rapidly towards becoming a nationalist Hindu state. Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who with overgrown facial hair began to look like a Hindu “sadhu”, there is little space in the country for those who don’t believe in Hindutva, the Hindu philosophy of governance. Modi and his political associates are so preoccupied with the task of creating a Hindu state that they have neglected the task of looking after the welfare of the citizenry. This is one important reason for turning India into the worst affected country in terms of the toll taken by the Covid-19 pandemic.