India was under the foreign yoke for about 250 agonising years, thus, putting a stamp of suffering and slavery, which severely damaged the ethos of the Indian culture and civilisation. When anyone argues that the British colonisation did good for India, we should understand that it was earned at the cost of its ancient values. Years have elapsed since India cast off the apron strings of the foreign rule and from the time of its independence in 1947, it has been trying to rebuild the nation. It has had its expected ups and downs as the Indian society is made up of numerous religious beliefs, including the age-old superstitions that are all a part of the Indian culture. As a result, family life in India has been quite durable as people still valued their ancient values and other aspects of the great Indian culture. It has had its first government under the eminent leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru, who made the rest of the world aware of India. He played a valuable role in world affairs, and as a result, the country witnessed a steady growth under his rule. But since then the country has changed very much and the communal amity has vanished into thin air under parties like the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). As a result, a strong educated middle-class came up that could no longer stand a bad and corrupt government and so started revolting.
All this misrule ended up in the disastrous fall of the good old Indian National Congress and up came the BJP under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi who tries to enforce his Hindutva policies. He banned beef trade in Maharashtra and says that in due course, all states should follow suit. Such actions are very bad for the progress of the nation as a strong secular country, as it will eat into the vitals of the nation. The government must make every effort to balance majority sentiments with minority needs.
— The reader is an Indian writer based in Kochi, India
