Fragmented. This is the word that keeps coming back to me, when I think about where India is right now. We are not failing, nor are we doomed just yet. But we are scattered and rather disjointed. We are drifting backwards, while pretending we are marching forward. Royal Peacock Barge, 19th Century, Murshidabad, West Bengal, India, from the Bengal Renaissance era. We talk about development, about becoming global super power, about reclaiming the lost greatness of our past, but when you actually sit with the reality of it, nothing about it feels pragmatic. The country looks alive on the surface, but underneath that, doesn’t it feel as if there is some sort of hollowness? People are constantly outraged, constantly reacting, constantly searching for something to attach themselves to, but very rarely stopping to think. There is no stillness, no thoughts, no depth. Just the momentum. And a pretty destructive one. It used to be about politics or media or education or the arts, but ...
Discourses by Ashish