What’s in a name, as Shakespeare famously questioned, is what India is suddenly known as: Bharat. But Prime Minister Narendra Modi is working hard to position India as a “vishwaguru” (guru to the world), adopting the Sanskrit term for his nation the same week that he lavishly hosted the G-20 conference in New Delhi. It is time to carefully consider his assertions and to look at his “New India”‘s present and future without succumbing to reassuring delusions.
Consider the publication “Bharat, the Mother of Democracy,” which the Modi administration gave to dignitaries at the G-20. It claims that the sages and monarchs of the ancient Hindu culture supported equality, inclusion, and peace. The 5,000-year-old bronze monument of a dancing girl who is “independent and liberated” predates even modern feminism.
Such assertions are a part of a complex narrative, which depicts the destruction of a once-vibrant Hindu civilisation by violent Muslims and rapacious Westerners, that is significantly influencing the worldview of many Indians today.
According to Modi’s own account, Hindus were held as slaves for 750 years by Muslim invaders and then for an additional 250 years by white British colonialists. This version of history is still used in India to excuse the treatment of Muslim and Christian minorities, the destruction of mosques and British-built structures, the erasure of textbooks, and the unofficial renaming of India.
Also Read: G20 Summit: Joe Biden Discusses Human Rights and Free Press Issue with PM Modi
Indifferent to the ups and downs of his party, Modi’s appeal stems from his forceful promise to topple the corrupt old political order and, as he said in his Independence Day speech last month, make sure that a completely modernized New India enjoys a golden age for the next 1,000 years.
This millenarian bombast is a part of a broader tradition of anti-Western demagogues who claim to be the offspring of great old civilizations, and it was also present in Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping’s speeches. The Germans and the Italians fall under this category because they both aspired to build the Third Rome and the Thousand-Year Reich, respectively.
Source: ANI
Follow Digital Fox Media for latest politics news.
The post India’s Rebranding as Bharat: Examining the Modi Narrative appeared first on Daily News.
