A tiny self-esteem can never power an oversized ambition, which is why aspirations of a resurgent Bharat to dominate the world stage cannot be achieved till it decolonises its mind and sheds the slavery of the mind it has inherited as historical baggage.

Narendra Modi has been stressing on it from long before he became Prime Minister, but in his third term, decolonisation is a stated goal.

The PM came up with a telling anecdote on the subject, speaking at the HT Summit.

He recalled Indian intellectuals coming up with the term “Hindu rate of growth" to describe the sluggish economy when India was struggling for even 2-3 per cent GDP rise. But now, when it is the world’s fastest-growing major economy, nobody links it to Hinduness.

Such is the ingrained colonial slavery that the champions of secularism, he said, did not find linking the faith of the nation’s majority to underperformance a communal act.

The term “Hindu rate of growth" was incidentally coined by economist Raj Krishna in a 1979 lecture, implying that a Hindu’s philosophical grounding in the........

© News18