Secularism and Liberalism in India: A Case Study of Modi’s Era (original) (raw)

In the recent decade, a sea change from Nehruvian India i.e. liberal, secular and democratic state, to the rise of far-right and illiberal democracy can be discerned after Narendra Modi‟s triumph in two successive Indian elections – the last one in 2019 returning him to power with a thumping two-third majority. Though, Narendra Modi‟s staggering success is the upshot of procedural democracy or political democracy in India, yet his campaign was ridden with right-wing rhetoric and demagogy, and witnessed the rise of jingoism, majoritarian nationalism, marginalisation of minorities and squeezing civil liberties. In the West, development between state and society has been dialectical – that is, through interaction between state and society. Popular struggles from society and enlightened initiatives by the state culminated in congruent development between state and society. In India, on the other hand, most of the modernizing and secularizing transposition was top-down – sanctioned by th...