The trap of a piece like this one is that it kind of ends up identifying Modi with India now. Also the second trap is one I have written about before somewhere - we ASSUME India was secular before and now its not. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/05/exile-in-the-age-of-modi/609073/

I would argue yes the state did adhere to secularism to the best of its ability as and when it was politically expedient too and yes some of our older leaders were very dedicated to secularism as were the courts.

However, Indian society as secular has always been a matter of debate. Or else I wouldn't be recording lynchings in 2005 or caste riots and honor killings in the 1960s.

What has changed is the organization and weaponization of prejudice at a national scale through senas, social media, sanghas and so on leading to the vocalization of genocidal ideas. This is stuff that was always said in living rooms before and now its on the streets and in the

newsrooms loud and clear.

But a piece like this is almost arguing that such things didn't happen before. Its like a blind spot for many liberals. I have always maintained these tendencies were confined to middle class drawing rooms and now they're out in the open. But the tendency has always been there.

I will also politely table my umbrage at this "Almost 30 years ago...Salman Rushdie... had expressed alarm that “there is no commonly used Hindustani word for ‘secularism’; the importance of the secular ideal in India has simply been assumed, in a rather unexamined way.”

I would argue that one doesn't need a perfect translation of the ideal of secularism in Hindi. Even the english-wala secularism was only a guideline to how the state should act. It never percolated down to most of society (except elites) as it should have.

What we DID have however, were strong traditions of rationalism practiced and preached in local languages. Or the idea of self-respect of Periyar, the rationalism of Dr. Ambedkar all of which were more than just concepts, they were political movements against prejudice.

Which is also why systematically right-wing goons have gone after local level rationalists and activists in India. They know that that's where the real threat to Hindutva comes from. It doesn't come from Khan Market.

But I will call BS on one important part of this piece. Its that part where the author discusses Bharat vs India. Ok So this is a pet peeve of mine. Everyone uses it without looking closely at the dynamics.

Even in this piece, the author says "India is historical; Bharat is mythical. India is an overarching and inclusionary idea; Bharat is atavistic, emotional, exclusionary."

"It was this tension between two distinct ways of looking at the same place—modern country or holy land"

Then he references Nirbhaya's rape and murder to illustrate some commentary involving Bharat vs India.

Now, I wrote a piece shortly after the 2012 gang rape incident called "The Gender Terrorists". There I wrote,

This sounds very much like an argument that pitches rural India (Bharat) versus cosmopolitan India where women are supposedly treated better. But this is not the case. If anything, Bharat and India agree on how women are perceived and how they should behave.

Bharat and India agree on dowry practices. Bharat and India agree on the impossible attractions of short skirts that ‘allow’ men to rape women. Bharat and India both believe rape can be conducted with impunity.

Bharat and India both have women that are victims of domestic violence and spousal abuse.

The arguments that construe metropolitan India as a socially evolved space are quite misleading and dangerous because they lull us into thinking that rape culture and gender terrorism

are products of economic and societal backwardness. If this were the case we would not see gender terrorism in countries like the USA or a host of European nations. That we still see incidents of rape in developed countries, is an indicator of the global scale of gender terrorism

So yeah don't write pieces about Bharat vs. India. They're the same if you're an Indian woman. That's a useless typology.

So why did I say that. It is because the author of the Atlantic piece says, "It was Bharat that was ascendant", i.e., the rise of BJP and Hindutva is the rise of BHarat. I would strongly urge people to really read political economy texts.

Many backward-looking right wing movements are a particular feature of late-developing societies; the ascendance of such movements is intricately linked to neo-liberalism. There ideology may be harkening back to something old, but their emergence and assertion is very modern.

In short, the piece is really pretty in its writing and beautifully articulated but not nuanced if one is looking for process and depth.