India: Leaders' Dilemma: The National Double-Bind

"There seems to be a tacit  understanding between RG and NM that both of them should work for the better future of India though they are running different vehicles, one is redundant and the other is a sixteenth century model."

That's a perceptive and rather witty observation - It captures both irony and insight.

Both of them operate within outdated or constrained framework, despite claiming to pursue India's future.  While they may differ in rhetoric and style, their underlying political mechanisms, party structures and populist tools are old vehicles struggling to drive a modern nation.  Both leaders, in their own ways help to sustain same political ecosystem - an ecosystem that thrives on polorization, spectacles, and personality driven politics.  Even rivalry becomes a kind of collaboration in maintaining that order.  India's leadership, whether Congress or  BJP seems trapped in nostalgia or inertia - two different vehicles on th same circular road.

This tacit understanding can be understood at three inter connected levels: political style, ideological legacy, and institutional function.

Political Style: The Theatre of Opposition 

Both leaders operate within a spectacle driven democracy where the image often overshadows policy.

Modi's style is that of a charismatic populist - commanding mass attention through powerful oratory, symbolism and a carefully managed public persona.

Rahul Gandhi, in contrast, projects an earnest moral critique, attempting to combine conscience against the machinery of power.

Yet, both need each other. Modi's narrative thrives on the existence of a dynastic adversary; Rahul Gandhi's critique relies on opposing a strong man figure.  It is almost Shakespearean - a rivalry that sustains both roles.

Thus by "tacit understanding" even without collusion, both perform complementary roles in a democratic drama.

Ideological Legacy: Two Versions of the Past

The vehicles aforesaid, one redundant and the other a sixteenth century model represents two outdated conceptions of India.

The vehicle of Congress is a post independence Nehruvian model, once visionary, but now struggling for relevance in a post-ideological media saturated age - its grammer secularism, socialism and inclusiveness sounds noble but dated to many voters.

BJP's vehicle is a civilizational revivalist model, looking backward to an imagined golden age of cultural purity. Grand but regressive.

These are historical projects; one tied to the memory of freedom, and the other to myth and tradition. Neither fully engages the present's complexities - technology, climate, inequality, federalism and global interdependence.

Institutional Function: Systematic Continuity 

Despite sharp rhetoric, both leaders preserve the same centralised political structure - Delhi driven personality centred system.

Bureaucracy, media, and corporates remain ego centric.

The political fight appears existential, but the machinery of governance continue with minor adjustments, and with least structural changes.

Both are custodians of continuity, not radical reformers - Two captains steering differently painted versions of the same ship. Indian polity may appear divided between two vehicles, but both run on the same old road powered by glorification of history, symbolism and spectacles more than vision and innovation.

India's democracy today resembles a vast traffic jam of ideas where both Congress (a redundant vehicle) and BJP (a sixteenth century model) occupy main lane, leaving little room for new vehicles to move forward. Let us look at this deeply.

Democracy without Imagination 

Both parties speak of change but operate through old vocabularies: nationalism, dynasty, religion and personality.

The BJP mobilised people through civilizational and emotional appeal - identity, pride, and belonging.

The Congress still speaks the language of constitutional morality, but often without a compelling emotional anchor.

In both cases politics become reactive rather than creative.  No one is really imagining the future - the economy, job creation, modern education, artificial intelligence, or the new geopolitics of Asia.

Earlier, India's democracy allowed a middle space - a sphere for moderate debate, regional assertion, and policy of innovation. That space is shrinking.  Television and social media reward polarization, not reasoning.  Parties depend more on emotion management than on coalition-building or local dialogue.

The middle ground - where democratic imagination once flourished now feels abandoned.

In this vacuum democracy risks by becoming spectale of rivalry, not a system of deliberation.

Institution such as parliament, universities and press, were once the nurseries of imagination.  Now they are co-opted, commercialised or marginalized.

When institutions lose autonomy, imagination must come from outside, civil society, writers, thinkers, or new movements.  But those spaces are now fragmented or under pressure.  So we get a democracy that is vibrant in sound but static in thought.

For India's democratic imagination to renew itself, three things are needed.

1. A new moral vocabulary - One that transcends both religious identity and colonial guilt, perhaps based on equality, ecological justice, and dignity of labour.

2. Regional and linguistic pluralism - allowing states, languages and local cultures to contribute visions of India, not merely follow Delhi's script.

3. Intellectual courage - ability of citizens, especially the youth, to question inherited myths of both "freedom struggle" and "cultural glory" 

Democracy must again become an act of thinking, not merely voting.

Tacit Understanding revisited 

The tacit understanding is not a conspiracy, but of habit.  Both leaders preserve an order that values stability over imagination.

Until that order is intellectually and culturally re-energised, India's democracy will remain a magnificent stage with actors repeating the old scripts to an increasingly restless audience.

Now a word about colonial guilt. Colonial guilt is a subtle but crucial force in India's modern politics and self perception.  Colonial guilt is psychological burden that post colonial nations like India carry from centuries of subjugation - a mixture of resentment, inferiority, and over compensation in identity.  It is not guilt in moral sense, in feeling sorry for colonising others, but a collective unease about having been colonised.

Let us unpack that carefully.

1. Roots of Colonial Guilt:  Before independence Indians were constantly told - through education, administration, and even religion - that they were backward, disorganised, and in need of British order and rationality.

After 1947, political freedom came suddenly, but mental freedom lagged behind.  The Indian elite inherited Western institutions and ideals (parliamentary democracy, bureaucracy, law, English education) yet felt torn between admiration and resentment.

This tension produced two tendancies:

• Mimicry: The urge to show we can run these institutions as well as (or better than) British.

• Revenge of authenticity: the urge to reject everything western as alien and rediscover our own glorious past.

Both are reactions to colonial guilt, not independent acts of imagination.

2. How it shapes politics:

The Congress tradition tried to 

out-British the British with polished English, parliamentary decorum, secularism, and the moral tone of reason and moderation. 

• The BJP tradition took the opposite path - reasserting civilizational pride, celebrating Sanskrit, temples, and the "real India" that colonialism supposedly suppressed.

Yet both are mirror image of same psychic wound: one trying to please history and the other trying to avenge it. Neither is entirely free from the colonial gaze - desire to prove something to the west or to history itself.

3. The Cultural Consequence:

Because of this guilt India often swings between inferiority and overconfidence. It exposes the following contradictions.

• We want global recognition but fear western criticism.

• We boast of ancient wisdom but distrust our present creativity.

• We preserve English education but resents its cultural influence.

It is a national double-bind: We want to move forward but keep glancing backward for validation.

4. Overcoming colonial guilt:

To renew democratic imagination, India must outgrow this double-bind - neither imitate nor idealise, but reimagine.  Accept colonial past as history, and not as a psychological wound - Learn from it, without defining ourselves against it. 

Then only India can produce a new moral vocabulary, rooted in self confidence rather than reaction.

National double-bind is a national character.

This tendency to live between pride and insecurity, tradition and imitation, assertion and dependence has become a part of India's national character, or atleast its post colonial temperament. Let us unpack why that happened and what it reveals.

1. From condition to character: 

A double-bind becomes a national character when it persists accross generations and institutions - when people start to think "it's just how we are." 

India's case is special because: 

• The colonial experience lasted long enough to reshape habits of thought - the way power, authority and knowledge are perceived.

• The freedom movement and its aftermath created an identity built both on resistance and imitation.

• Education system continued to glorify English modernity even as politics glorified indigenous identity.

As a result two moral reflexes coexist - "We must prove we are modern" and "We must prove we are ancient." Both are sincere, but both are incomplete.

2. Signs of this Double Character 

You can see it almost everywhere:

• In politics: Leaders swear by democracy (a western import) while appealing to civilizational greatness (a native inheritance)

• in culture: English remains the passport to prestige, but Hindi or regional languages remain the measure of authenticity.

• In Economics: we celebrate startups and global markets, and yet resent western influence on our traditions.

• In religion: we embrace technological moderniy but interprete it as validation of our ancient knowledge.

It is a creative contradiction - sometimes productive, sometimes paralysing.

3. Why It Feels National 

This double consciousness is shared across ideologies, it cuts through left and right, rich and poor.  It gives Indian life a peculiar vitality - a coexistence of contradictions that refuses to resolve. So, India's national character is not unity, but living with contradictions.  When this contradiction becomes habitual - a comfort zone - it begins to block deeper renewal.  It can produce cleverness instead of clarity.

4. Philosophical view:

India's national double-bind mirrors its ancient idea of dvanda - duality, the coexistence of opposites.  Modern politics often lives this duality unconsciously, not philosophically.  When contradictions are not understood but inhabited blindly, they turn from wisdom into confusion.

The double-bind has solidified into a national character, but it need not remain so.  If India learns to make that contradiction conscious and creative, it could become the basis for a new democratic imagination.

If we accept that India's national character carries a deep double-bind -- pride and insecurity, imitation and originality, reverence for the past and hunger for the future -- then the task is not to destroy it but to refine it into self-awareness.

Out of that awareness can grow a new moral vocabulary for Indian democracy -- One that is neither derivative of the west nor trapped in nostalgic self-praise.

Here is how such a vocabulary might take shape.

1. From identity to dignity.

The first shift must be from who we are to how we live.

• Indian politics has long been driven by identity - religious, linguistic, regional, or caste.

• A new moral or grammar would instead stress dignity - the condition under which all identities can coexist - without fear or hierarchy.  That means moving from an identity (I am a Hindu, etc ) to I am a citizen of India.

This single moral pivot could heal much of the inherited bitterness of the past.

2. From Pride to Responsibility 

National pride has served its purpose, now it needs a counterpart: responsibility.

• Pride says "we are great." 

• Responsibility says we must be  worthy of greatness 

The new vocabulary would not glorify temples, tech parks, or ancient texts for their own sake, but ask: 

Do these things enlarge human freedom, knowledge and compassion?

The patriotism becomes the art of stewardship - caring for land, people, and future generations.

3. From Tolerance to Mutuality 

Old liberalism often speak of tolerance: I permit you to exist.  The new democratic ethics should aim for mutuality: we coexist because we complete one another.  That is accepting plurality not as burden but as strength.  The way Indian music turns many notes into one raga.

4. From Centralised Authority to Distributed Wisdom.

The colonial and postcolonial state assumed that Delhi must think for everyone.  A mature democracy would rediscover federal imagination allowing states to express their own moral insights and civilizational wisdom.  Democracy, in this vocabulary is not control but conversation among regions.

5. From Development to Fulfilment. 

Both major parties equate progress with GDP, highways and slogans like digital India.

But morally renewed democracy would speak of fulfilment - health, education, joy, justice, environment and culture.

That recalls Gandhi's original insight: Progress without purpose is a form of poverty.

6. From Reaction to Reflection 

This may be the most vital change. India often reacts - to colonial memory, to western criticism, to political provocation.

A new moral vision would cultivate reflection - the courage to pause, question, and reimagine.

Reflection is how a civilization transforms its contradictions into creativity.

Thus, the new moral vocabulary would move India 

From memory to imagination 

From imitation to innovation 

From spectacles to substance 

From fear to confidence.

It would accept the double nature of India - ancient and modern, sacred and secular - not as a flaw, but as a field of dialogue.

That dialogue, rather than dogma, could become the true language of India's future.  Let us see how such a renewed vocabulary gains meaning when it begins to shape practice.

1. In Politics: From slogans to Dialogue.  Modern Indian politics often speaks in slogans -- "Vikas,"  "Beti  bachao," "Bharat  Mata,"   "Save  Democracy."

A new moral language would prefer dialogue to declaration.

•  Leadership: A leader's strength would lie, not in commanding devotion, but in awakening thought.  Imagine a Prime Minister who says, "I do not have all answers - let us think together."

• Policy debates: Instead of shouting matches in Parliament, we would see sessions, where regional voices, social scientists, and civil groups deliberate openly.

• In Elections: The question would not be "who do you belong to?" but what future are we imagining.

This is not Utopian, it is how democracy matures - when politics stops being theatre and becomes conversation.

2. In Education: From Utility to Understanding 

The present education system trains for employment, not enlightenment. A new vocabulary for democracy would insist that education means learning to think and to care.

• Curriculum: Alongwith maths and coding, students would study ethics, ecology, and comparative cultures - learning not what to think but how to think.

• Language: Regional languages would gain equal dignity with English.  The goal would be bilingual intelligence, not linguistic hierarchy.

• Civic learning: Every school could hold "democracy circles", where students discuss community issues, learning responsibility.  Such education produces citizens.  

Such education produces citizens, and not subjects.

3. In Culture: From Assertion to Creation:

Indian culture today oscillates between defensive pride and Western imitation.  A new moral spirit would return to creation - producing new forms that are rooted but universal.

• In literature: Writers may explore the lives of towns and villages treating them with same depth once given to palaces and temples.

• In cinema: Films could move beyond patriotic spectacles to question what nationhood means in a diverse digital world.

• In art and philosophy: Epics could be reinvented or reinterpreted, not as a proof of ancient glory but as living dialogues about freedom, desire, and truth.

Culture would becomes the space where contradiction finds beauty.

4. In Civic Life: From Obedience to Participation. Instead of treating the government as parent (or master) and citizen as child (or servant) democracy would thrive on participatory responsibility.

• Local bodies and panchayats could gain real autonomy, allowing decisions about environment, heritage, or schooling to emerge from within the community.

• Urban citizens could be invited to co-design public spaces, not just complain about them. 

• Civil servants could be rewarded for innovation, not conformity.

In short: government as a collaboration, not command.

5. In Moral Psychology: From Victimhood to Confidence 

At the deepest level, this vocabulary calls for an inner transformation - freedom from colonial guilt and civilizational vanity alike.

Confidence means we can appreciate Western science without feeling inferior, and revere our traditions without exaggeration.

It means saying:

"We need not prove we are great. We need to become good."

That quiet sentence might be the seed of India's next democratic renaissance.

In Essence 

If the 20th century's Indian democracy was about winning freedom from others, the 21st century's must be about winning freedom from our own inherited postures.

Colonial Guilt >  Congress Guilt: The Continuity 

After independence, the Congress party didn't overthrow the colonial state; it inherited it - its bureaucracy, its laws, its administrative mindset, and even its social distance from masses.  So when British departed, the structures and manners of rule remained largely intact.

This created a subtle moral tension.

How can a party born in anti-colonial struggle govern through colonial instruments?

That unresolved tension - between being revolutionary in origin and bureaucratic in practice - became what we might call Congress guilt.

2. The moral shape of the Congress Guilt 

The Congress guilt expresses itself in several ways: 

• Paternalistic attitude: Rulers seeing themselves as benevolent (parent ego state) of still immature people (child ego state) - echoing colonial civilizing mission - I am ok, you are not ok life position. 

• The rhetoric of humility: The constant invocation of sacrifice and service, as if moral authority must compensate for administrative distance.

• The discomfort with power: Many Congress leaders, especially after Nehru, seemed apologetic about wielding power - as if governance itself betrayed Gandhian ideals.

• The dependence on English liberal idioms: The party continued to seek legitimacy in Western democratic norms - parliamentary decorum, secular rationalism - even as the ground reality changed.

In all this, you can see the echo of colonial guilt transformed into Congress guilt - a habit of conscience without corresponding courage of innovation.

3. Because of this guilt, Congress often governed with hesitation:

• Economic reforms were delayed until necessity forced them.

• The idea of redistributive justice never became a clear mission; it remained bureaucratic welfare.

• Party's secularism became a moral preaching rather than cultural engagement.

The result: moral fatigue set in.  The BJP, sensing this offered the opposite energy - confidence without guilt, certainly without self-doubt.

Where Congress said, "We must not offend history," BJP said, "We will rewrite history."

That's how one's guilt became the other's weapon.

4. The Historical Irony 

The greatest irony is that the Congress inherited the British empire's psychology - and the BJP inherited Congress's self-justifying nationalism.  Thus, India's political theatre still moves inside the moral architecture built during the colonial and Congress eras. 

Or, we may say:

The Congress carries the guilt of coloniser; 

The BJP carries the pride of the colonised.

Both are incomplete without the other.

5. Towards a Post-Guilt Politics

If India is to renew its democratic imagination, it must move beyond both forms of guilt - colonial and Congress.  That means no more feeling morally burdened by history, nor seeking constant redumption through rhetoric.

Instead, the new politics must begin with moral clarity:

acknowledging the past, learning from it, but refusing to be defined by it.

Yes, colonial guilt was India's inherited condition.

Congress guilt is its political manifestation.

Perhaps the task of coming generation is to build a post-guilt India, one that acts not from apology or resentment but from thoughtful confidence.

Let us explore what that would look like in leadership, public attitude and national ethos.

1. The New Leadership Style:

From Messianic to Stewardship 

Post-guilt leadership would abandon both the moral preacher and the saviour hero models.  Instead, it would see power as stewardship - temporary custody of a shared future.

• Such leader wouldn't say, "I will save India" but "Let's repair and renew together."

• They act transparently, treating institutions as sacred trusts, not as an extension of ego.

• They are comfortable admitting uncertainty - humility without shame.

This kind of leadership would appear quieter, but it would produce deeper trust.

2. The Citizen's Temperament: 

From Devotion to Partnership 

In post-guilt politics, citizens are not subjects waiting for deliverance, nor cynics sneering at every authority.  They are partners in democratic craft.

• Voting is only the beginning of participation - not the end.

• Criticism is treated as contribution, not betrayal.

• People value competence as much as charisma.

A post-guilt citizen no longer needs to choose between worship and rebellion; they practise responsible questioning.

3. Political Language: From Apology or Pride to Accuracy 

The tone of national speech would change profoundly.

Where colonalist and Congress guilt 

produced moralistic rhetoric, and later politics produced grandiose pride, the new language would seek accuracy, empathy, and truthfulness.

For example:

• Instead of "India is greatest civilization," we might hear, "India has done well, but must ensure no child sleeps hungry."

• Instead of "We have been wronged for centuries," we might hear, "We have inherited both wounds and wisdom; let us use both wisely."

Truth replaces posture as moral strength.

4. Institutional Ethos: From Fear to Professionalism 

Post-guilt state would encourage professional dignity instead of anxiety or flattery.

• Bureaucrates would feel empowered to take initiative rather than seek permission.

• Judges, teachers, and scientists could act independently without being haunted by political pressure.

• Public debate would reward competence over emotion and lineage.

When institutions lose guilt, they gain courage.

5. Cultural Mindset: From Restoration to Reinvention.

Instead of trying to restore lost glory or imitate the West, post-guilt culture would create afresh.

• Artists could draw from both indigenous and global sources without defensiveness.

• Universities could welcome Sanskrit and quantum computing in the same corridor.

• The aim would be synthesis, not reaction 

• The emotional core: Quiet Confidence

At the core of post-guilt politics lies a quiet emotional shift: 

Confidence without arrogance, and humility without shame. 

This is not a Utopia; it is simply what maturity feels like - the stage where a civilization stops proving itself and begin improving itself.

Post-guilt politics would mark the passage from historical anxiety to civilizational composure. It would combine Gandhian conscience with Ambedkarite justice and the Nehruvian curiosity - yet move beyond all of them, into a time where India acts not from its wounds but from its wisdom.

1. The Kind of Leadership: The Listener - Thinker 

The post-guilt leader will not be the traditional orator or dynasty heir, nor the chest-thumping populist. They will be what one might call a listener-thinker -- someone whose strength lies in understanding complexity and articulating hope without spectale.

• Intellectually bilingual: able to speak both the language of the people and the idiom of ideas. 

• Ethically transparent: Not performing virtue, but practising honesty in small decisions.

• Culturally plural: at home in multiple India's - rural and urban, ancient and digital.

• Emotionally stable: calm under criticism, immune to provocations - opposite of the reaction- driven leader.

Such a leader might not emerge from elite politics at all.  They may come from civil society, regional movements, academia, or technology sectors -- places where innovation and public spirit meet.

2. Generation: Children of the Mixed World: This generation is already forming -- born after liberalisation, growing up with smartphones, social networks and global exposure.

They are less burdened by colonial memory or Congress mythology.

Their strength:

• They value competence over lineage, impact over ideology.

• They can admire Gandhi and Elon Musk in the same breath - not out of confusion but out of pragmatic pluralism.

• They are impatient with moral posturing but deeply moved by authenticity.

If they rediscover ethical seriousness - through climate concerns, gender justice or digital ethics they coud give India its next moral vocabulary.

3. The Social Temperament: Beyond Fear and Mockery 

Post-guilt society would need to outgrow two reflexes:

• Fear of authority ( hangover of the past)

• Mockery of idealism ( a post modern disease)

In their place would come respect for sincerity - a willingness to let people try, fail, and still be heard.

Public life would regain the tone of conversation rather than contest.

Temperament grows when institutions protect freedom of thought - universities, media and courts becoming spaces where truth can breathe.

4. The Path of Emergence 

Such leadership and generation will not appear by decree; they will evolve through necessary and fatigue:

• Fatigue with empty nationalism and inherited guilt.

• The necessity of addressing real challenges - environment, inequality, technology - that can't be solved by rhetoric.

• When survival demands imagination the new type of India will emerge naturally.

5. The Shape of Their Vision 

A post-guilt generation would redefine what greatness means:

• No conquests but coherence.

• No dominance but dignity.

• No heritage as museum, but as method of renewal.

They will speak of India not as "the world's largest democracy," but as the world's reflective civilization - capable of learning from its contradictions rather than escaping them.

The next moral generation will be rooted like the village, curious like the city, and confident like the ocean.