India’s Freedom at Midnight – Sixty Years later. This piece was written in 2007. Now…
Browsing: democracy
It is indeed telling that while the elections are being played out in India, some of the most avid watchers are thousands of miles away and separated by oceans and continents – in America. Indeed the Indian Diaspora from Africa to the Middle East to Europe are all deeply involved in the outcomes but nowhere is the connection so deep as in America. Men and women who left their homeland over 30 to 40 years ago, still are moved enough to catch all the details on television, Indian newspapers and by phone calls to the family in India. (Photo – Narendra Modi supporters in Silicon Valley hold a tea rally in California)
“As most of you know, I’ve written a book about Bombay called ‘Maximum City’. If Bombay is the maximum of the urban experience, India is the maximum of the democratic experiment.
What does it mean to be ‘maximum’? By the middle of the century, India will be the world’s most populous nation, overtaking China. Biologically, at least, we will be number one. But ‘maximum’ isn’t just about population. It connotes generosity, openness, large-heartedness. It is about striving for the limits of what is possible. And it’s what characterizes the age-old cultural traffic between the country of my birth and the country of my nationality.” – Suketu Mehta.
(Photo: L to R: Salman Rushdie, Suketu Mehta, Tunku Varadrajan & Amb. Dyaneshwar. M. Mulay.)