When it was established in 1947, the modern state of India offered the secular alternative to decidedly Islamic Pakistan. Yes, India was the Hindu-majority carve-out from the British Raj, while Pakistan (which comprised what is now Bangladesh and modern-day Pakistan under 1971) was to be the homeland of the Subcontinent’s Muslims, but for years India took pride in its definite split between Temple and State, against the blurrier situation in Pakistan.
Seventy years on and things look decidedly different. The political landscape has been ceded by the once-dominant Indian National Congress (INC) to the nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with its links to the paramilitary Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) whose Hindutva or “Hinduness” ideology it has gradually come to adopt. Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP-led India is witnessing a decided break from its more secular past.
