As India marks its 79th Independence Day, the
speeches, parades, and televised images once again swell with the refrain that
we are the “world’s greatest, mightiest, and largest democracy.” The present
regime repeats this mantra so often it has become a kind of national soundtrack
— but like all rehearsed lines, it risks masking more than it reveals. Behind
the grandiloquence lies a calculated projection of strength and magnificence, a
deliberate crafting of political theatre in which the spectacle of nationalism
is prized over the substance of inclusive nationhood.
The Age of
Monumental Optics
As the columnist Vasudevan Mukunth notes in The
Hindu (12 August 2025) nothing better illustrates this shift than the
recent inauguration of the Chenab railway bridge in Jammu and Kashmir —
celebrated as the world’s highest rail arch. Its graceful steel curve across
the Chenab River is undeniably a marvel of engineering. Yet, the decision to
feature it prominently on Independence Day invitation cards reveals the
underlying strategy: national pride is now anchored less in social equity or
democratic vibrancy, and more in monumental imagery.
Over the past decade, India’s political narrative
has been dotted with superlatives — the tallest statue, the longest expressway,
the largest stadium. The Statue of Unity looms 182 meters above the
Narmada, a colossal tribute to Sardar Patel that also subtly recasts him into a
Hindu-first icon, aligning him with the ideological thrust of the current
regime, says Vasudevan. Each new infrastructure project is wrapped in a media
blitz and infused with nationalist rhetoric, designed to elicit awe rather than
invite scrutiny.
The size is the message. These structures are not
simply public works; they are symbols — declarations etched in stone, steel,
and concrete — meant to impress upon citizens an image of a strong, capable,
and resurgent India. But the question lingers: whose aspirations do they
fulfill, and whose needs do they overshadow?
Grandeur vs.
Grassroots
India’s obsession with gigantism coincides with a
selective rewriting of history. Projects like the Kashi Vishwanath Corridor,
according the same columnist, are framed
not merely as urban redevelopment but as civilisational reclamation, reclaiming
“Hindu heritage” while marginalising other cultural narratives. This is less
about serving diverse communities and more about curating a singular cultural
identity — one that flattens India’s pluralism into a monolithic vision.
It is not that nation-building has no place for
spectacle. The Eiffel Tower, the Hoover Dam, or the Great Wall of China have
all functioned as rallying points for civic pride. But in India’s present
political climate, spectacle operates with a dual purpose: it signals
“progress” while simultaneously asserting dominance. Expressways slice through
rural landscapes while adjacent villages still await basic sanitation.
Mega-dams displace Adivasi communities, while stadiums are built in cities
where slums remain untouched by development.
The physical grandeur becomes a substitute for
social justice, replacing the slow, difficult work of inclusion with the
faster, flashier work of construction. This is a governance of optics, where
engineering feats are brandished as proof of political will, even if the
benefits remain unequally distributed.
From Inclusion to
Exclusion
The scale and ferocity with which the current regime
pursues these projects reveal a deeper pattern: the deliberate anchoring of
national belonging in monumental forms that inherently exclude. Public
consultations, when they happen, are often perfunctory. Legal and environmental
safeguards are waived in the name of urgency. Development becomes something
done to communities rather than with them.
The rhetoric surrounding such projects mirrors the
language of military triumphs — shrinking distances, fortifying
borders, taming nature. The government’s Himalayan tunnel projects
are presented as marvels of ingenuity, yet they scar fragile mountain
ecosystems and uproot Indigenous populations. The price of speed and spectacle
is borne by those least visible in the national imagination.
This exclusionary nationalism is reinforced by the
erasure of minority contributions from the nation’s story. The grandeur
projects are almost always framed within a selective historical narrative,
celebrating certain icons while silencing others. It is a nationalism that
prefers a perfect postcard image to the messy, contested realities of
democratic life.
Security,
Stature, and the Rhetoric of Vigilance
This year’s Independence Day rhetoric is also shaped
by a heightened discourse on national security. At the 8th National Security
Strategies Conference in July, Union Home Minister Amit Shah warned that
India’s “rising stature” would bring greater security challenges in the coming
decade. His prescription — tighter coordination between central and state
agencies, increased anti-narcotics drives, and the use of indigenous technology
for policing — reinforces the government’s narrative that India is under constant
external and internal threat.
This security-first framing dovetails neatly with
the politics of spectacle. When a nation is constantly reminded of threats, the
construction of monumental symbols becomes not just a celebration of pride but
also an assertion of power — a visual guarantee of safety and stability. But
this visual reassurance often conceals the cracks: unaddressed social
inequalities, stifled dissent, and communities left behind in the march toward
a “great” India.
The Lost
Tradition of People-Centric Engineering
India’s history offers a different blueprint for
pride. Ancient stepwells, Mughal gardens, and traditional irrigation systems
were engineering marvels too — but they were built to serve communities
directly, to provide water, shade, and sustenance. They reflected a vision of
nationhood where achievement was measured in lives improved, not just in
records broken.
In contrast, the present fixation on record-breaking
structures sidelines this heritage of people-oriented development. Nationalism
becomes a stage performance where the citizen is an audience member, not a
participant. Grandeur becomes the idiom of pride, while inclusion — the true
test of democracy — is relegated to the margins.
Independence Day:
Between Reality and Projection
The annual Independence Day celebrations are the
perfect stage for this politics of projection. The Prime Minister’s address
from the Red Fort is less a policy roadmap and more a showcase of India’s
“achievements” — bullet trains, digital economies, smart cities — often without
acknowledging the gaps between these promises and lived realities.
In a country still grappling with child
malnutrition, agrarian distress, and unemployment, the emphasis on “world’s
largest” and “world’s tallest” rings hollow. The grandeur may photograph well,
but it does little to address the lived experience of millions whose
independence remains incomplete.
Rethinking
National Pride
True national pride need not be small-minded or
anti-modern. India can and should celebrate its achievements in science,
technology, and infrastructure. But pride loses its moral weight when it is
used to paper over inequalities, to exclude rather than include, or to replace
democratic participation with passive admiration.
The challenge before India, as it enters its 80th
year of independence, is to reclaim a vision of nationhood where the measure of
greatness is not the height of our statues or the span of our bridges, but the
breadth of our inclusion — where every citizen can see themselves in the
nation’s story, not just as spectators of grandeur but as stakeholders in its
promise.
As the fireworks fade and the flags are folded this
August 15th, the question lingers: Will we continue to equate patriotism with
spectacle, or will we dare to build an India whose grandeur lies in the
dignity, security, and participation of all its people?
