Miracle, Interrupted

摘要

Indian scholars and authors like to write about something they call the "idea of India," a loosely denned concept of national identity. It's an attempt to impose a measure of coherence on the messiness of a country of 1.2 billion people. That messiness, however, is real. From the ground, it's hard to imagine how a single idea could ever capture India's reality. Perhaps that's why observers of the subcontinent (both domestic and foreign) tend to retreat to easy generalizations and simplistic narratives.