Nehruvian Secularism

It is one of the ironies of human history that Hitler, who restored to Germany the pride the Treaty of Versailles robbed if off, and Gandhi, who inspired India to free itself from the British yoke, should’ve become the bane of their countries in the  long run. Though Germany could recover its Hitler trauma in time, it couldn’t repair its demographic dent the war had left to its hurt, but trapped in a Gandhi matrix mired by Godse conundrum, India is stymied, seemingly forever, from inculcating a nationalistic pride and purpose to achieve its true potential.

Leading British historian David Washbrook, Research Professor in South Asian History, Trinity College, Cambridge, U.K., sees India at a crossroads with Bharatiya Janata Party in government. In conversation with The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy, he shares his views on the decline of Nehruvian secularism, the attempts to rewrite history in India, and the status of research in Britain.
http://www.thehinducentre.com/the-arena/current-issues/article6689096.ece

Manmohan Desai's Amar Akbar Anthony (1977) is one of the most popular blockbusters of the 1970s. The movie’s cast, songs and scenes still pervade Indian contemporary popular culture. Released at a time of  social upheavals, the political outlook and content of this cheerful gangster comedy has seldom been addressed. In this paper, I attempt to show in which ways and to which extent, Amar Akbar Anthony can be construed as a pamphlet for a Nehruvian Secular form of Indian Nationalism. Despite the interpretative “openness” of the work, its historical and social “antecedents” mark the movie, to use two conceptual tools from Umberto Eco. As a recurring subject, the role of images, characters and objects shall often be discussed, as metonymic and symbolic vectors of a particular take on Religion and Politics. First, we will see how the movie’s religious discourse has been influenced by the intertwined religious attitudes of State and movie industry. In which ways Amar Akbar Anthony is to be understood as a plea for a plurireligious Nation through typically Indian-cinematic codes and input. Second, I describe the "jocularly idealized" depiction of Indian Muslims and Christians as the main ideological objective of the movie. The latter placing the premium upon the Goan Catholic and Sufi title-characters within the plot. Third, the limits of the Nehruvian Secular interpretation of Amar Akbar Anthony are discussed, with the possibility of an equally plausible Hindutva-oriented reading of the movie, considering that Hindu Nationalism was already infusing Indian society and its movie industry, but also due to some ideological ambiguities of the œuvre.