India in a New Key: Nehru To Modi, 75 Years of Freedom and Democracy

On the morning of 15 August 1947, when Jawaharlal Nehru, heir to Mahatma

Gandhi, the Buddha and the European Enlightenment, raised the Indian

Tricolour on the ramparts of the Red Fort, the seventeenth-century palace

of Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, India was free to make experiments with

freedom.

In the seven decades since Independence, the country gradually changed from

Nehru's democratic socialism to Narendra Modi's democratic entrepreneurial

digital India, dealing with its internal contradictions by playing the game of

democracy and in the process becoming the sixth-largest global economy.

And with Chandrayaan exploring the Moon, a space nation was born.

India overlooks the Himalayas and the Indian Ocean, abridging Southeast

Asia with the Middle East. With its immense brainpower and young

demographics, India is geopolitically an indispensable nation. Indians play

the game of democracy any which way they can: through massive elections;

parliamentary debates and no-confidence motions; coalition forming and

horse-trading; hartals, bandhs, dharnas, fast-unto-death; and finally, when

nothing works, they knock at the doors of the Supreme Court.

India in a New Key attempts to offer an insight into questions like:

-How has India been experimenting with freedom to solve its socio-economic

problems?

-Can Modi-like Nehru-create a unified Indian consciousness?