India, The Land Of Million Mutinies, Faces An Existential Crisis, Much Like In The 1990s: Maybe, It Is The Economy, Stupid!

As India grapples with issues of “identity” and the “baggage of history”, it is worth asking if inclusive economic growth can alleviate some of the “existential” questions swirling around in the national discourse. Or, is it that the current “potent” cocktail of muscular nationalism and accelerated plutocratic growth is enough to keep the “Million Mutinies” at bay?

Photo by Patrick Beznoska on Unsplash

The Nobel laureate and Indian-origin writer, the late V S Naipaul, in one of his many digressions on India, characterized the country as a “land of million mutinies”, referring to the prevalence of multiple faiths, races, ethnic, religious, and caste identities, with each group “revolting” against the centre and with others as the patchwork of separate and distinct groupings made it impossible to forge a cohesive and all-encompassing identity of Indianness. Indeed, Naipaul’s characterization was in the late 1980s, when it seemed as though the nation would not be able to survive this onslaught of million mutinies, torn as it was under the…