It may or may not have an impact, but it certainly will determine the future of India as a tolerant society or an intolerant one. Problem is with religion itself; this is not a man-made idea as much as people try to put it in its place. Because in the eyes of its adherents, it is unquestionable and hence any commentary or sub-ideology within it is difficult to refute due to human logic centres deciding to shut themselves off (ironic that most religions did not start out with that premise).
You can defeat communism and Facism because at their core are mortal beings as the beacon. With religion and the possibility of a non-corporeal and immortal entity as the core commanding beacon; there is always hope for that ideology.
Which means that there is no convincing religious extremists otherwise.
My view is that of the elderly, decidedly gloomy. This religious extremism seeping into public life is not exactly accidental. Without making an RSS conspiracy theory and presenting it, it is still relevant to look at the sweeping changes overtaking India at the social level. There is an excellent presentation by Nilgiri, who for once has stopped baiting Bangladeshis and found a very good article. It is useful as it underlines the two influences forming the India of today. One is the tidal wave of people coming into the cities, which are bursting at the seams; the other is the shift in the direction and method of learning that is taking place, and that contributed to the prosperity that the article mistakenly celebrates.
The change from 80:20 to 60:40 has meant that Indian cities are filled with people from towns and villages; also, something often overlooked, Indian towns are filled with people from the villages. First, it puts unbearable strain on the existing infrastructure; second, it brings to the city the decidedly less disciplined culture of the village; third, worst, it carries en masse to the city the social attitudes prevalent in Indian villages. This is one reason why the Indian city today is no longer the advanced cultural and socially evolving centre that the Maurya, the Gupta, the Sultans, the Mughals, the Marathas, the Sikhs and the British fashioned. They are agglomerations of villages, with village boorishness leaking out at every pore.
The second phenomenon is that we no longer educate the way Macaulay thought we ought to. That is probably a good thing; his model was posited on a colonialism of the most obnoxious kind. But what has replaced it is something that gives the village social and cultural attitude the Good Housekeeping seal of approval - Indian professional education through private colleges and universities. We no longer educate our citizens after school, where the most important social acculturation used to take place; instead, we train them. The loser is the humanities; there is no time for anything but the engineering, the medical, the commercial professional training.
The amalgam of village and town social values and a so-called higher education that is training thinly disguised is highly toxic. It is this that is poisoning us slowly. My daughter is in Canada. I am thankful that the three of them will not be a part of what is happening and is about to happen to us.
PS: The author, Chetan Bhagat, is one of the damaged products of the humanities-free professional training imparted to us, albeit from an IIT. His smug self-satisfaction reflects the values and attitudes of that generation.
