India-Canada row is proof that Indians are more confident of their place in the world now

The “natives” aren’t listening any more! (Photo by Arvind Shakya via Pexels)

Many Westerners appear to be puzzled by the reaction of common Indians to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s accusation that the Indian government had a hand in the murder of Khalistan supporter Hardeep Singh Nijjar. On social media, several India watchers from the United States and other countries have expressed surprise, even bafflement, at how unanimous the response has been from Indians across the spectrum.

Broadly, this is what Indians seem to be saying:

Trudeau has provided no hard evidence to back up his allegations, so they have no substance.

The few stray voices that differed from this view have been treated with disdain. That may not sound nice to non-Indians, but that’s how it is.

The reason why outside observers are perplexed is that they have not kept track of how a nation’s attitude has changed over the last decade or so. They are still viewing India through yesterday’s lens.

Call it muscular nationalism or whatever, Indians seem to be prouder of their country and their identity than they have been for a long time.

I have always been astonished at how apologetic many Indians seemed to be about their country when they met Westerners, whether at home or abroad. One often noticed that whatever the topic of conversation, the Indian seemed to be saying that India and its people are messed up. And subtly implying: But I’m better. By criticizing India, they were trying to prove to the Westerner that they were not like “other Indians”.

This is obviously an inferiority complex that gives rise to a strong urge to please the white man. I suppose one can call it the “sepoy complex”. The reasons why Indians suffered from this should not be hard to decipher. Older Indians—that is, older than the millennials—carry the burden of colonialism, passed on to them by their parents and validated by their own memories of an India that just trudged along, plagued by poverty, filth, shortages of the most basic items and endemic corruption. In spite of the grand rhetoric of successive sarkars, there really was not much for an Indian to be proud of, other than brief highs like the 1971 war when we dismembered Pakistan.

Respect is never an act of charity, but for decades, Indians went around begging for it by trying to prove that they were not like, well, “Indians”. Naturally, this reinforced the historical notion that Anglo-Saxons and other Westerners had of a brown-skinned colonized race. They could hardly be blamed for having that impression.

Younger Indians have no such mental baggage. They see themselves as equals of people from any other part of the world and are eager to compete with the best. They are also integrated into the world—it does not surprise us if the boy working at the neighbourhood grocery store is watching equestrian events in the Asian Games on his cellphone. In fact, on his off days, he is probably working on the video of a song he has sung, which he plans to upload on YouTube and attract a global audience. India has a higher percentage of women pilots flying commercial aircraft than any other country. Teenagers dream of creating tech unicorns.

All this has been building up over a long time, but it’s clearly visible now. It began in the late 1990s when a number of forces converged—the long-term beneficial effects of economic reforms, telecom connectivity, the Indian software industry becoming a global force, a burgeoning middle class and a more consumerist and aspirational society that was not shackled by the traditional tenets of frugal living, which essentially embodies a pessimistic view of the future.

Also read: 'Let's not normalise what is happening in Canada': EAM Jaishankar

Nothing perhaps typified this new attitude better than the Indian cricket team that Sourav Ganguly built during this period. Ganguly rejected the regional and class biases that had traditionally subverted honest team selection and created a band of brothers who believed in themselves, were aggressive, in your face and sledged the Australians right back. They were not going out on the field to make friends. This was a huge break from the past—a past that the next generations of Indian cricketers are not even aware of.

So, yes, Indians are much more confident of their place in the world than before. But the West does not seem to have been able to come to terms with that yet. A passing glance at how Western media has reported and commented on the ongoing India-Canada row is proof of that. India is “defiant” (the word “defiant” implies either a weaker person or someone in the wrong), “Western countries have for too long acquiesced to the Indian government’s abuses”, India should be seen as a “rogue state like Iran and Russia”, and so on and so forth.

The message that this agitated state of mind conveys is: How dare India carry out extra-territorial missions to neutralize a terrorist? That right is reserved solely for the West and Israel.

This agitation is compounded by the fact that Indians, other than a few champagne liberati whom the Western and sepoy journalists in Delhi hang out with, do not seem to be bothered. The West cannot figure out why the more its media and other messengers rant against India, the less attention Indians pay them. The “natives” aren’t listening any more!

It is almost certain that Nijjar’s murder will remain unresolved. This whole fracas will not end with a bang, it will simply peter out.

But the power elite of the West, already mired in an endless war in Ukraine, need to understand that India—not only its government but its people—is no longer playing by the rules of the game that the West set. India has followed its self-interest on the Ukraine issue. That upset the West. Now this. Well, they need to accept that they just have to live with it.

Of course, we should not be over-confident. That is a danger we should be wary of. But we should also know the fine line between being friendly and being diffident, being nice and being seen as weak. Despite what Jesus said, it is unlikely that the meek shall be inheriting the earth soon.