It’s time to think about who we want to be, as the world shape-shifts again.
Further back, our first war of independence in 1857 saw soldiers from different regions and religions rally around a Mughal, Bahadur Shah Zafar, as a shared symbol of self-rule. India supplies the world with software engineers, doctors, CEOs and blue-collar workers; films, food, a spiritual vocabulary; medicines and affordable satellites. The freedom movement served as a reminder, and an act of coming together: many faiths, cultures and identities marching under one demand.
This matters for any country with many languages or many newcomers. It applies to many countries that were once made up of outsiders and newcomers, and have forgotten that this is so. As India modernises, without fully surrendering to the nuclear family, perhaps countries struggling to navigate aging populations and slowing growth might admit that leaving home as a college student and barely looking back is not the only way to give youth its space. How would this fit into the economies of countries that rely very differently on consumer spending and high levels of debt? That is an argument to be made. But the idea is ready for export — and it’s an idea the world dearly needs.
