I just read a comment by Kabir about how 2014 changed Nehru’s India drastically ( I do not agree but that’s not for now). But this poses another question.
As XTM’s post pointed out/alluded Hindutva was inevitable and the natural outcome of Pakistan. But why did it take 67 years of Hindutva to assert itself.
In my mind the answer is pretty straightforward and two fold.
1. Gandhi’s murder at hands of a Hindutvavadi.
2. Sluggish economical growth of the socialist era (also called wrongly the Hindu rate of growth).
I would love to hear comments on the question posed above.
Why 2014 happened in 2014?
Mass media. The urban middle class, which was already soft Hindutva, had the means to market their consensus. Also, the tenor of discourse on Pakistan and terrorism changed irreversibly after 26/11. Had it happened a decade earlier, it wouldn’t have been experienced the same way because of television penetration. Likewise, had the Gujarat pogroms happened a decade later, we would possibly be less willing to glide over it. Too much footage and individual testimony in real time. I don’t think a coherent idea of India existed among the masses, even until the late 90s. India as liberal democracy was mostly pretense, and smartly as it cultivated a lot of global legitimacy. To this day, upholding that pretense, has tremendous utility in suppressing would be radicals.
Very interesting