India, 75 years after its independence

On August 15, India celebrated the 75th anniversary of its independence from the British Empire.

An event that went relatively unnoticed in Europe —except in the United Kingdom, for obvious reasons—, but that clearly illustrates the moment in which the ancient South Asian country finds itself.

For weeks, citizens prepared for the celebration and advertising and commercial offers linked to this date proliferated.

Narendra Modi's government took the opportunity to launch a campaign to incite national fervor, centered on the

- the orange, white and green tricolor flag with the wheel of

in the middle-.

All Indian citizens were invited to display it in their homes, shops and vehicles with the aim that at least 200 million flags would fly throughout the country.

Days after the anniversary,

is still omnipresent in the streets of the Indian capital.

Beyond this exercise of symbolic patriotism, many confirm, the current political climate is very different from that of 1947, when Jawaharlal Nehru took charge of the country after the British left, and even that of 1997, when the 50 years of independence.

It is not the first time that the Bharatiya Janata Party (Indian People's Party) has governed.

However, critics argue, since the right-wing and Hindu party won the elections in 2014 with Modi at the head, the respect for religious and ethnic plurality that characterized the founding project of democratic and secular India is increasingly in decline. interdict.

In international indicators of democratic quality, the country has consistently dropped several places in recent years, and many global observers denounce a progressive erosion of civil liberties and a growing marginalization of Muslim and Christian minorities, as well as Dalits (traditionally , the untouchables) and adivasis (the tribal population).

Salman Rushdie himself, days before he was attacked in New York,

According to the French political scientist Christophe Jaffrelot, in recent years, India has moved towards a new type of regime,

in which all citizens retain their right to vote, but in which institutions are being modified to favor a Hindu majority at the expense of minorities.

For the Indian analyst Parsa Ventakteshwar Rao Jr., Modi's party has appropriated patriotism as part of its ideology;

"What is not said is that this patriotism is a Hindu patriotism."

The aspiration to an ethnically and culturally homogeneous society and the perception of minorities as a threat go back to Hindutva ideology, conceived at the same time as European fascism.

If the BJP has been capitalizing on religious tensions in the country for some time, Modi, several analysts argue,

he has been exceptionally adept at channeling the frustration of millions of disenchanted Indians with the elites educated in Western values ​​who have largely ruled the country since independence.

Corruption and the neoliberal impulse undertaken in the 1990s by the historic Congress Party, despite its socialist roots, appear on the list of grievances.

But also the deep-rooted contempt for the humblest layers, even among the enlightened elites with supposedly liberal ideas.

The lack of real political will on the part of several generations of progressive Indian politicians to tackle the brutal material and social inequality that plagues the country is palpable.

As the journalist Anil Padmanabhan points out, 75 years after the country's independence,

“some of the socioeconomic challenges inherited from the British are still pending;

to mention a few: severe malnutrition among children under five years of age, open defecation, inadequate schools and a nonexistent hospital structure.”

Perhaps it should not be surprising that, in a process similar to what we see in other countries, Modi's national-populist discourse, his vindication of his own essences alien to foreign impositions, past and present, and his promise to turn India into a developed nation of here at the centenary of its independence in 2047 penetrate broad sectors of the population, beyond the tangible results of its policies for these same majorities.

In a country with a population of 1,380 million people and in which 10% of it owns 77% of the wealth, according to Oxfam, the challenge of turning it into a more egalitarian developed society is immense.

But, if the past teaches us anything, it is that the great social advances of a nation occur when all citizens, without distinction, can fully participate in its public and economic life.

Olivia Muñoz-Rojas

 has a PhD in Sociology from the London School of Economics and is an independent researcher.

Currently, she resides in New Delhi.

oliviamunozrojasblog.com

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