INDIA IN A NEW KEY NEHRU TO MODI: 75 YEARS OF FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY || Narain D. Batra ||

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.