Japan is a cultural juggernaut. Across the world, millions of people consume its bits and bytes. Whether cartoons or cuisine, fashion or factories, video games or virtual geishas…I think you get the drift here. Japan has left a massive imprint on the world without much of a footprint from its diaspora. And yet just a couple of generations back, Japan committed a Kamikaze on its own culture. Traditions were ripped from their roots. Branches of knowledge burnt into the wind. The fruits of labor shorn from farms. The seeds of societies were cast into the sea. At least that is what they told you…

In 1871, Ito Hirobumi, a future Prime Minister of Japan, seeded this story to some of the most powerful Americans of their time, including President Ulysses S. Grant, in a Washington, D.C. restaurant. He framed the Meiji Restoration as a revolution, an inception appealing to American ideals, against the oppressive and backward traditions of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Japan was to replace a Buddhist enlightenment with the European version. Extroverted Western ideas of liberty and equality would awaken the introverted Japanese from their dark meditative stupor.

This was Hirobumi’s Don Draper-esque pitch to Americans to allow him and his countrymen to study the ways of the West to revive Japanese fortunes after a series of civil strifes and humiliations by Western powers themselves. In reality, the Meiji Restoration was a much more complex phenomenon. While Meiji leaders no doubt desperately wanted to imbibe Western governance, technology, and development, they also sought to preserve and revive aspects that made Japan, well, Japan.

Let us first briefly examine this eclectic Meiji mix before we get into the maelstrom of how it is relevant for India.

To Stand with the Nations of the World

There are 2 main concepts to understand here:

1. Radical Nostalgia
2. Cosmopolitan Chauvinism

Radical Nostalgia refers to the invocation of the “traditions” of a far-flung ancient past to upend contemporary traditions. For example, to disenfranchise the daimyos (feudal lords) and samurai caste in a bid to destroy feudalism, modernize the military, and embrace Western conceptions of the nation-state, Meiji reformers suggested that the ancient Japanese method of organization was actually much more flat and concentrated on imperial power rather than feudal lords. The samurai were the only ones allowed to carry weapons at the time, proudly flaunting their iconic double katana at their hips. The Meiji abolished that practice and encouraged mass conscription and weapon use for all citizens, saying this was an even more ancient custom. While this is technically true (the conscripts were frequently forced), what is most relevant here is that the invocation of a nebulous ancient tradition to defeat salient modern traditions was a common tactic to solidify reform in Meiji Japan. Completing the Meiji regime’s conceptual double katana was Cosmopolitan Chauvinism. This is the idea of framing foreign or Western concepts as “universal” or “enlightened” while consciously disassociating that foreign origin. Meiji reformers used the examples of Buddhism’s Indian origin & Confucianism’s Chinese origin as justifications for the now much-needed import of Western Enlightenment thought. They argued, arguably rightly so, that Japan had contoured Indian Buddhism and Chinese Confucianism to a sublime if not superior Japanese avatar. They believed by fusing local Japanese value systems and its Shinto milieu with these foreign ideas, the Japanese had perfected them. This is a powerful yet underrated notion.

Western ideas around the nation-state, industry, and markets were labeled as “enlightened” (kaika), “universal” (udai), and “civilized” (bunmei). These were ideas of the world, not of the white. Reformers claimed that Japan must “rank with the nations of the world” (bankoku ni heiritusu). The word Heiritisu is most pregnant here. Its meaning is ‘to stand side by side implying both equality and distinctiveness.’

With this in mind, now we can assess the Meiji Restoration more holistically rather than smother it with clichés.

Practicing Theory

The Meiji government sent emissaries across the earth. Known as the Iwakura Mission, our old friend Ito Hirobumi and company galavanted over Gaia marveling over metal breathing smoke and steam in England. They witnessed Bismarck smash cities into a state as Prussia with its neighbors quaking in its iron-scraped wake. In America, Meiji diplomats watched the world’s greatest experiment in action as Americans pushed the geographic and ideological limits of the West. But back in Japan, experimental theories couldn’t be observed directly; instead, the hypothesis of modernity was being tested live.

The Caretaker Government or Rusu Seifu couldn’t wait for their Iwakura brethren to return to give their assessment. Japan was teetering on civil strife as an age turned anew. The country was changing. With the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate and repeated diplomatic and military embarrassments at the hands of creeping colonial powers from the West, Japan yearned for a new direction and leadership. With only freshly translated books from strange foreign lands and eccentric European advisors at their disposal, Meiji caretaker leaders began to implement the reformation of their state, and more crucially, their people.

It is important to emphasize the Meiji government’s autocratic bent. Change did not occur under the apparently evergreen aegis of democracy. No – this was done under a vanguard of imperium. The figurehead Meiji Emperor was cocooned by an oligarchy of competing reformist factions. The important oscillation here is that of factions that supported the immediate inculcation of Western freedoms and ways of competing against those who preferred a route of government guidance. Essentially, would Japan’s restoration be via revolution or reform?

Western theories around industrialization, government architecture, and diplomacy were fairly straightforward. Implementing them in more-or-less homogenous societies was a given. But Japan was not homogenous. It had regional affinities, feudal focus, and most prominently, a caste system.

Japan’s abolition of samurai privileges, traditions, and aesthetics sparked intense, often violent, pushback. Not just from the samurai caste, but also from castes under them. Each caste not only had its own traditions that were being upended (the Meiji regime forced Japanese men to adopt Western hairstyles that resembled that of the untouchable Hinin caste), but also their fealty to their feudal Daimyos was often more than that of a pushy far-away capital parachuting diktats at will and whim.

The most egregious of the Meiji regime’s policies for Indians may be encouraging meat and especially beef consumption. While fish was a mainstay, old Buddhist norms showed their Hindu ancestry in Japan with the consumption of cow-flesh and at times even other meat heavily discouraged. Factions in the Meiji government also promoted an atypical xenophobia where obscure Shinto rituals replaced common Buddhist ones; however, this was soon rolled back as many Shinto and Buddhist rituals and temples were intertwined. So for believing Japanese, incomplete rituals meant inauspiciousness if not the wrath of the Gods.

At this point, the Meiji Restoration just seems like a headache. What benefit did Japan gain from it? Caste rebellions, religious destruction, misapplied theories, & mistakes galore dotted the Meiji experience. But out of that bitter journey, Japan emerged standing shoulder to shoulder with European powers, at least in hard power. A rapid Isengardian industrialization ripped farmers from their soil into soot-laden factories. The Japanese military, prior a highly ritualized samurai force, took conscripts from all castes and hammered them into an iron unit. Early mixed samurai and commoner forces (kiheitai) would defeat more traditional Tokugawa armies using newly acquired Western arms and military techniques. Many of these kiheitai veterans would form the leadership of the Meiji army, which broke the backs of China and Russia in back-to-back wars, announcing their imperial ambitions and position in the world. The earth had seldom seen such a rapid rise in a country’s fortunes.

India’s Trimurti of Modernity

So what does this all have to do with India? Fundamentally, the Meiji Restoration is about modernity not simply Westernization. Some posit modernity as a Western Enlightenment invention, but for Japanese reformers, modernity was an enlightened universal value and progress of all civilizations on their own terms. Indeed modernity to me is an elemental force, a change of climate, not a neatly fashioned paradigm crafted in Protestant workshops in northwest Europe.

For India, modernity comes in 3 flavors.

Firstly, is Nehruvianism. It eschews caste and religion in favor of science and secularism. It is the Indian step-child of the Enlightenment, constantly seeking to embrace its every element yet never acknowledged in full. Abundant in skin but low in substance, Nehruvianism forever gazes to the West seeing it as the eternal lodestar of progress. It is the most top-down and elite-inspired of all variants of Indian modernity. It has descended into doom after the domes of Babri were broken.

Secondly is Ambedkarite thought. Ambedkarism emphasizes caste as the end-all and be-all of Indian society. Every single grain of Indian society, economics, and politics must be analyzed through the prism of caste. Equality and social mobility are its main takeaways from the Enlightenment. At its ideal core, Ambedkarism believes that all Indians must be treated equally regardless of background. This means that social justice is its primary vector of policy and method for civilizing the Indian. In practice though, its social justice quickly becomes societal revenge. It frequently veers into anti-religious, especially Hindu, tangents causing clashes with even innocent traditions due to an all-consuming antipathy that clouds the ideology’s discernment of the past. A potent force in the present.

Lastly is the most analogous to Japan’s Meiji modernity, especially now that we recognize the diglossia of its frame. Born of the mind of the Indian revolutionary and Hindu Nationalist, Veer Savarkar, Hindutva became the epitome of Savarkarite thought. Savarkar viewed Hinduism as an evolutionary phenomenon rooted in the land of India. While revering Hinduism as a concept, traditions such as untouchability and even the caste system itself were seen as a source of weakness, the Achilles Heel of Hindudom. Hindutva simultaneously posited a reverence of the past yet also a present reckoning with traditions that held India, and especially Hindus, back. Its goal was to carve a people(s) into a nation, above their various divisions and outdated ways. To achieve the base of brotherhood in order to compose a nation-state. Sounds familiar right?

It is at this door we must enter. The shallow reading of India is that Nehruvianism and Ambedkarite thought encapsulate India’s Meiji Moment. But that is because we lean toward the popular rendition. Indeed as we saw, the Meiji Restoration committed caustic and violent upheavals of tradition, but this process was an experiment. A push and pull of various factions and thinkers. The Meiji Restoration was fraught with violent rebellions, political intrigue, and visceral debate concerning the path of the Japanese people to achieve Japan’s rightful place in the world. With this backdrop, India has the benefit of hindsight.

To Raise a Fallen People

Firstly, let’s take a bite out of the big kahuna – caste. Compared to Japan’s caste system, the Indian version is more complex, localized, and ritualized. It is deep, wide, and everything in between. But there are parallels. The most Meiji-like critique of caste can be found with BR Ambedkar and Veer Savarkar. Fundamentally, Ambedkar, Savarkar, and Meiji intellectuals viewed caste as the impediment to creating a nation out of peoples. Caste was a chasm. It caused too much disunity and unnecessary strife in the eyes of these men. It made their people weak preventing their nation from becoming strong. And remember, they observed caste sans democracy. A quick look at the madness of Indian democracy, where caste is the basic unit of democratic politics, can make one realize its blatant incompatibilities with a modern democratic nation-state.

The Meiji Restoration was actually spearheaded by the Samurai caste itself. Many of the reformers carried two katanas at their hips but dropped those blades making it a point to stitch commoners into the fabric of the Japanese military, scholarship, and government apparatus, such as with the kiheitei regiments discussed earlier. Part of this was due to political reasons. The leaders of the southwestern domains of Choshu and Satsuma were primary antagonists against the earlier Tokugawa Shogunate and experimented with commoner integration earlier to resounding success. By the cusp of the Meiji Restoration, both the central Tokugawa regime and Choshu-Satsuma alliance agreed in reform, it more so came down to which power center would be the one to carry out these reforms and reap the benefits (as well as avoid the disenfranchisement). There is another Indian timeline where India’s independence elites heeded Savarkar, Ambedkar, and other early reformers to better integrate all castes, even forcefully as we saw with Japan. Many of India’s contemporary caste issues might’ve been nonexistent if such a movement occurred.

Nonetheless today, caste is strongly calcified. Over 90% of Indians marry within their caste. The government even offers financial benefits for intercaste marriage in some states but with little effect. Caste is indeed a bottom-up phenomenon in India (although definitely also supported by top-down benefits based on caste from the government as well). Ridding India of caste would be incredibly violent. Not only that but a great chunk of India’s famed diversity is sourced from caste. Caste functions as another layer of ethnicity for many Indians, even deeper than linguistic or regional ethnicity. Speaking of which, the crisscrossing of caste with regional identities means that caste weakens regional sentiments. In this way, it aids the national project of India versus state separatisms.

Even so, caste is intensely corrosive when combined with democracy. Indian democracy, especially in its majority hinterlands, is a battle of getting one’s casteman in power. Long-term development and macro priorities fall to local squabbles over caste pride and clout. Government policies such as welfare and affirmative action linked to caste further fester this divide. That much-needed industrialization commonly falls to caste interests from those that dominate market niches (Ex: India’s failed farm reforms) or simply out of sheer jealousy that other castes are doing better than themselves. India desperately lacks a concept of commons in the wake of caste. India’s only glimpse of democratic function comes from its cities where caste goes to wither. Ultimately, India will have to play a game of waiting and urbanization. It cannot afford open caste rebellions and opportunistic parties fanning them to get into power who will trash development and reforms permanently into the bin.

But what would a post-caste India actually look like? People search for identity and belonging. Caste provides concrete culture in terms of belonging. Rituals, traditions, diet, dialect, and more can indeed be expressions of caste. If all of this is gone, I think we’d see Indians start to look for another identity source. Some would go one level up to stronger regional identities. Others will go the aspirant cosmopolitan route, which many times means global liberalism. Another form is Hindutva, an aspirant cosmopolitan ideology more tailored towards India. Either way, there will be a free-for-all in people’s minds. A Meiji direction would lean towards Hindutva as it harnesses nationalism and coalesces people into a cohesive national unit.

India’s Radical Nostalgia

Recall the justification of mass conscription and the fall of the samurai caste. The Meiji regime justified these actions via a reference to an older tradition than the contemporary. In India, tradition has many roots and even more branches. The contemporary traditions we see are simply those that have flowered and given fruits. They may indeed be Lindy, but the world rapidly changes at times to render such traditions less heuristically useful. Such has occurred with the advent of industrialization and modernity.

So it is here where we must peer into the past to uncover lost traditions. Those that were replaced long ago but can be made relevant once again just as Meiji reformers did in Japan. Ancient India is replete with traditions and a diversity of their expressions. The Indian caste system, defined by the ancient code of varnashrama and endless expression of jati, is not an iron phenomenon. They have ebbed and flowed in appearance. Just as genes can be present but not expressed, so can these cultural “genes” be activated.

While rigid forms of caste have won out, what about alternative versions? In the Mahabharata, an epic that truly defines India, the wise sage Yajnavalkya presents an alternative perspective on caste. Yajnavalkya claims that since all varnas (castes) are born of the primordial supreme being and essence of Brahman, they are all Brahmins. He further goes on to say that the ultimate knowledge of liberation (moksha) can be taken from people of all varnas and even from the lowest of the low in caste. In some ages and places, this idea of honoring a lower caste as a Guru is a blasphemous statement. And indeed we find similar “equalizing” verses across scriptures, but ultimately this is a heterodox position for much of Indian history.

Nonetheless, what these disparate verses have in common is a core theological concept. All lean on the absolute and divine nature of the Atman, the unchanging and pure soul-like essence that travels across bodies facing endless births and deaths in a quest for liberation. The logic is that worldly differences such as caste should be secondary to the inherent divinity of the Atman in each human. Thus, we find a source for the radical nostalgia of caste reformation if not dissolution.

What would this look like? Let me begin by framing this as a thought experiment, not an endorsement. Firstly, caste markers such as the janeu or other outward symbols would either be abolished or open to all. Caste requirements for priesthood or any other duty would not exist. Caste last names would be replaced by more generic names (though this didn’t do much to eradicate caste in Tamil Nadu which tried this and still has one of the highest endogamy rates and most caste-focused polities in India).

All this will be done by being wrapped in the carefully cherrypicked words of Yajnavalkya and other sages and scriptures that fit the necessary narrative. Expect bombastic resistance nonetheless.

So far, I’ve only described an attack on the bottom-up forces of Indian society about caste. But any student of Indian politics will tell you how equally entrenching the top-down forces of the government are. Hence, policies such as reservation, caste-based doles, caste regiments in the army, and any policy linked to caste are thrown in the bin. Every Indian is simply an Indian. Their caste is legally kaput.

This reformation of caste is so essential because, for so many Indians, history is viewed through the prism of caste. Indian political parties compete in statue building and honoring leaders based on how many votes it will fetch them from certain castes. Last names and origins are swapped. Myths are made. All to eke out an extra vote or two. The Meiji reformers quickly realized that history is a powerful binding force, but history is of the elites. Samurai toppling dynasties and heads are much more interesting than farmers beheading stalks. As Japan’s caste system dissolved, history was now everyone’s. Japan’s modern founders discerned that diversity had to bend the knee to unity. A cohesive national project must win out over local identities. India’s post-independence leaders gave this a half-hearted attempt but eventually succumbed to India’s obesity of diversity. Now, the arteries of the Republic are strangled by said diversity. Consequently, Indian politics has tumbled into a pursuit of short-term appeasement of groups.

Meijification of Indian religions would be an even more caustic affair. Firstly, removing the beef-eating taboo…you already know this wouldn’t fly, so it’s better to just move on. Parochialism and extraterritorialism of certain minority religions would be crushed and they’d be forced into worship of the state a la the CCP. In that spirit, the state would be synonymous with Dharma akin to Meiji Japan’s embrace of Shintoism and rejection of Buddhism. As a result, individual Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, and Sikh sects would face both sponsorship and pressure from the Indian state to conform to the national mission just as the Meiji government purged certain parts of religions and promoted others. The Meiji reformers themselves contoured Shinto ethos to resemble the centralizing force of Christianity combined with European nation-states as they believed this centripetal force was essential to national greatness. Like in Japan, this would inspire fierce and no doubt violent resistance, enough to threaten the integrity of the Indian state itself.

India’s Cosmopolitan Chauvinism

India’s Cosmopolitan Chauvinism is on full display in family WhatsApp groups. Uncles will casually forward how India invented democracy, air travel, surgery, and various other things – some of which they are indeed right about! Beyond the always easy and jovial quip about uncles, India’s Cosmopolitan Chauvinism is one that will seamlessly blend with Radical Nostalgia. For Indian history is deep and its traditions are wide. One can find any anecdote in the past if one just looks close enough.

The most ironic example will be of industrialization. Ironic because we will be using caste as a justification for it. The Shudra rests at the bottom of the classical Indian varna system or caste hierarchy. Their fortunes varied immensely in the past with some being ejected from the caste system entirely as untouchables while others became celebrated kings. Yet the median mode of the Shudra was labor work. Farming, engineering, crafting, building, etc… The spirit of industry. You can see where this is going, of course. To redeem this caste whose varna name was frequently used as a slur in the past, industrialization should be an expression of India’s Shudra ethic. Victory in modernity depends on imbibing the lowest of Indians. And with that victory, that lowliness itself will be questioned.

Paired with industrialization is economic liberalization. Already a regular at Indian budget announcements, Chanakya’s Arthashastra is invoked to coat reforms and policy changes. Here we can again hypocritically use caste as India’s merchants, the Vaishyas, were world-renowned in the past. The shimmer of their coins launched ships across shores and caravans across crossroads as the subcontinent lived up to its diamond shape. Most aptly, Indians pray to Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, every year during their holiest of holidays in Diwali. It is a blatant blasphemy of Indian tradition to see how far socialism has climbed over capitalism given India’s rich mercantile past.

We are already halfway into the varna system so let us go all the way. Brahmins, the wordy wizards of India, have mastered language and knowledge. The largest repository of knowledge today is composed of the English language. This Cosmopolitan Chauvinism is actually quite well on its way. Indians are adopting more and more English. Their languages are becoming pidgin eaten away by English verbs, nouns, and adjectives. English is aspiration and social mobility. It is internationalism and access. Long ago, the Brahmins mastered language and then mastered society. The lexicon they forged would create Indian thought. Domination of English knowledge systems and networks will similarly mean Indian ascendancy. In a twist of fate long after India’s tryst with destiny, the English language will become majority Indian.

To round off our quartet, the will to power will be achieved with warriors, the Kshatriyas. Japan exploded across East Asia humbling China, Russia, and any other power it touched. Today, India is in a very tough neighborhood. While China is out of the question now in terms of power differential, Pakistan and the recently belligerent Bangladesh are not. An ascendant India would surely want to make examples of both countries. Not just from a geopolitical angle, but also for that integral national ethos we mentioned earlier. Pakistan and Bangladesh are repudiations of the idea of India and especially of its Dharmic core. The persecution of Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists competes with the most contemptible cruelty displayed in the world. For the free-wheeling chariot warrior ethos of the Kshatriya, chasing after an illustrious white horse into new territories and raising the flag of victory over his rivals is the surest sign of arrival.

Yet we cannot just rely on reincarnating Indian concepts. Japan succeeded by learning from and importing Western expertise. Today, China and America provide the zeniths of development and technology. Smaller countries like Israel, the Netherlands, Singapore, etc… also can and do lend expertise in niche areas like agriculture, drone technology, and biotech. India shouldn’t be afraid to interface with the world to learn. Before it can become a Vishwaguru (World Teacher) it must become a Vishwashishya (World Disciple). Verily, the Vedas announce this openness to knowledge coming from all directions with the verse, “Ā no bhadrāḥ kratavo yantu viśvataḥ” – Let noble thoughts come to us from all sides. India is several countries within a nation so it will naturally need to study different regions of the world to imbibe the techniques of modernity.

Archaic Innovation

While Japan’s Meiji Restoration tried to preserve and promote parts of its past, it was an overall caustic affair. One can point to its ripping of tradition as a reason for its cultural capitulation and geopolitical servitude post-WW2. Of course, we can say that it was simply due to the hard realities of defeat at the hands of the Americans, but that fierce expansionary spirit of Japan has been desiccated.

In writing this article, I wanted to round off with a more realistic method of applying Meiji concepts to India that will spare it from violent societal reactions that the aforementioned parallels would no doubt inspire. In my research, I found I had already given an intellectual blueprint 3 years ago in a piece describing the battle between Indian tradition and modernity. I combined the ideas of Radical Nostalgia and Cosmopolitan Chauvinism into something I called Archaic Innovation (you know it sounds cool). With some changes and keeping the purple prose, here it is:

Hinduism is known by a native term called Sanātana Dharma. Sanātana translates into “eternal” linking itself to the apaurasheya, unborn Vedas which reverberate through time and space ad infinitum. Across the saga of Dharma, various Avatars and Gurus are said to incarnate and inspire a return to the primordial Vedic way, innovating not by forgetting the past but by building a future with foundations rooted in the ancients. A restoration of Dharma, not a revolution against it. So shall this idea apply to the child of Dharma – India.

Indian history is one of the most brazenly politicized fields in the world. It is extremely difficult to parse what India or Bhārat or Jambudvīp were in the past. Each Indian region had its own ever-evolving culture over the eons imitating and influencing other regions as well. Smritis, scriptures based on remembrance, were outfitted to the era with various conflicting maxims and mandates. Yet, this is Dharma. One size rarely fits all, especially in India. Likewise, we can deduce commonalities that transcended time and space in India; this is also Dharma. But when it comes to modernity, the goal should be to adopt lessons and customs conducive to success in the present. Therein lies Indic triumph.

Integral in the pursuit of modernity is a grand franchisement of a society. Indeed, one of the most pivotal factors in the rise of Anglo-American countries was their embracing of Enlightenment principles that empowered individuals across the societal spectrum, not just a narrow aristocratic class. This form of dynamic meritocracy, where equality of opportunity is spread to increase competition and sources of progress, is something that should be wholeheartedly embraced by India. Whether the lessons of meritocracy come from the episode of Eklavya, ever determined in his archery skill despite his unqualified background, or the transcendence of one’s lineage in the story of the demon-spawn devotee, Prahlad, the tales of India’s past are replete with examples that provide bases of empowerment to India’s downtrodden and disadvantaged. Indians today can draw inspiration from tales of the past, even if our heroes don’t fit today’s notions of liberty, equality, and reason.

Additionally, we can go further in this vein where we derive modernity, whether values or even policies, from the rich past of the Itihasa-Purana and other scriptures that defined the culture of ancient India. In the lives of Narayan’s avatars, we see the dyad of bravery and compassion, a tempered action that renounced base feelings of hatred, jealousy, greed, and ego. Ahimsa is no Gandhian invention to be cast aside in the fire of Hindutva; it is an Upanishadic notion elaborated upon by the greatest of warriors, Bhishma, on his deathbed of arrows. Sri Aurobindo and Swami Vivekananda, great sages resembling pristine lotuses resting above the putrid swamp of the British Raj, gathered ancient Indian concepts to become the forever firewood for India’s revolution. They knew that India had been beaten due to its own inferiorities. But they saw those dismal characteristics as temporary and believed in an innate goodness to India derived from its old ways – of course with some wise picking and choosing along the way.

As such, the pursuit of modernity should not mean a wholesale junking of tradition as many fear or even want. If India detaches itself from its roots, we may see the disintegration of Indian society and even eventually the state itself. A full embrace of the Meiji way will cause India’s parts to jettison from the whole. Change is a must; but that change should be wrapped in familiarity and legitimacy. India’s Radical Nostalgia is nothing less than its Dharma. Ideas taken from beyond should be branded with Indian indigeneity for its Cosmopolitan Chauvinism. India is fundamentally still a conservative and strong society.

Biological evolution is driven by natural and sexual selection. The former is explained easily – traits that help one survive are passed on. However the latter is a bit more coy. Sexual selection may not be immediately advantageous for survival but traits like bright plumage or courtship rituals are a testament to fitness. If an organism can afford to display such extravagance or even “culture,” it can surely provide. Similarly, human culture, however irrational, is attractive. Traditions bring beauty. Aesthetics are refined by the sands of time. Modernity cannot just be raw natural selection, it needs an aesthetic and cultural rationalization. Once more, we find our muse in Dharma.

The difference today is that democracy plays a fundamental role in the shaping of religion and culture. Seers and scholars are replete with understanding and expertise, but now sovereigns carry an even larger burden of defining Dharma. As Emporer Ashoka patronized the Buddhist Sangha and began the march of Buddhist missionaries across Asia, the RSS and the BJP play a similar role in acclaiming certain ideals and traditions. Many of these ideas will clash as we see the interplay of tradition and modernity. A 21st-century Samudra Manthan is on the horizon. With Indian thought as the serpent king, Vāsuki, the Indian state as Mount Mandara, and Indian society as the great Ocean of Milk, tradition and modernity will pull on each side creating a societal churn not witnessed in many years. In this churn of ages, we will receive both ratnas (gems) and halahala (poison) as India not only profoundly changes, but also deftly restores the grand audacity of thought that India nurtured long ago, in an age of Gods and Demons.