Letter from India, The International Herald Tribune
I think it is fair to say that India has become a more modern country. It clings far less to the achievements of its ancient civilization, and looks proudly and with anticipation to the future successes of what many believe is destined to be an Indian century.
When I was a boy, India felt isolated. Today, the country is a world power, its interests and actions helping to define the contemporary global condition.
But is India really a modern nation? Modernity is layered, defined more by a state of mind than by loyalty to contemporary trends or consumer fashions. As the German philosopher and social critic Theodor Adorno put it: “Modernity is a qualitative, not a chronological, category.” Perhaps the relevant question, then, is not so much whether India is a modern nation, but what form its modernity takes.