Just as Pakistan’s pretensions of economic superiority were being shattered, so were India’s notions of itself as a bastion of secular tolerance. The election of Narendra Modi, a populist Hindu nationalist, as prime minister of India in 2014 signalled more than a rightward lurch – it shook India’s ideological foundations to their core. Until then, Indian politicians had prided themselves on being the heirs to Nehru’s vision of India as a country of rich pluralism, where Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs co-existed peacefully and shared political power (even if reality often fell short of that goal).
...more
