'Biggest Religion Had To Be Self-Deprecatory': EAM Jaishankar On How Today's India Is Different From The Nehruvian Era

EAM S Jaishankar on Wednesday (15 November) said that India has changed from the minority pandering Nehruvian era, where the biggest religion of the country, Hinduism, had to play itself down.

During a conversation hosted by the High Commission of India in London, titled 'How a billion people see the world,' Jaishankar said that the tolerance in India has not gone down but Indians today are "more authentic" and less hypocritical about their beliefs, traditions and culture.

"Has India changed from the Nehruvia era? Absolutely, because one of the assumptions of that era... one of the thought which very much guided the thinking of the polity and its projection abroad was what we in India define secularism as...," Jaishankar said.

"For us secularism does not mean being non religious, but equal respect to all faiths. But what happened...we got into vote bank politics, a minoritarian pandering, that created backlash..In the name of equality of all religions, biggest religion had to be self-deprecatory, and play itself down," he added.

"I'll say we are more Indian, we are more authentic. We are not today either currying favour before a global audience, or really trying to live up to some kind of left wing liberal construct which a lot of Indian felt was not us," the EAM added.