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# India: all aboard?
- URL: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/india-all-aboard/
- Published: 2008-08-20T11:08:27.000Z
- Updated: 2019-02-14T22:41:26.000Z
- Description: In the wake of India's 61st birthday, the country's problems remain immense and its dreams of superpower-dom all the more ungainly.
- Author: Kanishk Tharoor
- Tags: #en, #Migrated, #Import 2026-04-09 18:41

Amongst the big countries of the Asian continent, the nation is back. It was the foreign ministers of Russia, China, and India, after all, who met last year to [affirm their vision of "multipolar world system"](http://www.hindu.com/2007/02/15/stories/2007021512520100.htm?ref=opendemocracy.net), founded on the hallowed ground of respect for national sovereignty and territorial integrity. The Russia-Georgia crisis reminds [Ivan Krastev](https://www.opendemocracy.net/article/russia-and-the-georgia-war-the-great-power-trap) that the 19th century lives on, while the ominous grandeur of the Beijing Olympics has lifted [burgeoning nationalism in China](https://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy-china/nationalism%5F3456.jsp) from anachronism to global force. India - the continent's other "waking giant" - also rides the nationalist tide. Its recent economic successes and growing international influence have been matched by a swelling belief in national purpose.

Yet where grassroots jingoism throttled dissent in China during this year's Tibet crisis (see Ivy Wang, ["China's netizens and Tibet: a Guangzhou report"](https://www.opendemocracy.net/article/democracy%5Fpower/china/netizens%5Fand%5Ftibet%5Fa%5Fguangzhou%5Freport)) and in Russia overwhelmingly supported state-propaganda during this month's clash with Georgia (see Evgeny Morozov, ["Russia/Georgia: war of the web"](https://www.opendemocracy.net/russia/article/russia-georgia-war-of-the-web)), no such consensus can be easily found in India with its buzzing civil society and vast and varied media landscape. Antara Dev Sen, editor of the indispensable *Little Magazine*, offers a [timely corrective to the Indian nationalist narrative](https://www.opendemocracy.net/article/india-at-61-heres-looking-at-you-kid). In the wake of India's 61st birthday, the country's problems remain immense and its dreams of superpower-dom all the more ungainly.