Not many would agree with Prime Minister Modi that the world sees India as a “bright spot of growth and hope”. For a long time, the country has been projected as a bright spot and a potential great power. Way back in 2008, British journalist Edward Luce published a book, In Spite of the Gods, The Rise of Modern India. The volume argued that in spite of being a land of many contradictions, India had huge opportunities to become a great power.

India is increasingly seen as a potential world power. But as C Raja Mohan recently wrote, India is “forever rising, never arriving”. Bharat Karnad explains in Why India is not a Great Power Yet.

In History in the Making, JH Elliot makes a distinction between a chosen nation and a victim nation. A chosen nation thinks it has spiritual, biological, and racial characteristics to make it dominant in global affairs. A victim nation, on the other hand, tends to attribute its misfortunes to others and to ignore failings closer home.

Chosen Nation And Victim Nation

The Hindutva forces claim the status of a chosen nation but act like a victim nation. They refuse to accept the fact that discrimination against the so-called lower castes and women was not the fault of the White colonisers but a product of traditional Indian practices. Tagore advised Indians to seek glory in the illumination of lamps lit everywhere in the world. Unlike RSS/BJP ideologues, the nationalism of Gandhi and Tagore was not based on the sense of persecution or cultural/racial superiority.

History is not just about the past; it also has its present agendas.........

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