The middle class loves Modi, except for a small segment of it. Members of the middle class throng at his paid-for events abroad, at domestic functions where a selfie opportunity could materialise, adulate him on social media and form self-assembling hordes to collectively jeer at his critics, calling them antinational or slaves of The Dynasty. Their devotion gains in ardour when Modi disdains them, as in the 2018 Budget: it shows how steadfast he is in his pursuit of national glory, how brave he is, risking the displeasure of his swooning devotees for the long-term good of the nation.Their attitude towards Modi is mediated by their attitude towards the nation. The nation is an amorphous concept, but that does not prevent anyone from shouting themselves hoarse in support of the national side in any international sporting context. It is easy to identify the nation in juxtaposition with something that is clearly not the nation. It is also easy to identify the nation with symbols like the flag, the anthem and the soldier. What is not so easy is to understand is why 16% of the population, the Dalits, think it worthwhile to celebrate a colonising force’s victory over an indigenous upper caste ruler in Bhima Koregaon in 1818.There are other puzzles: why does a sizeable section of the tribes of central India support the Maoists, with their foreign ideology, attacks on the security forces and declared hatred for the great leader? Why do some in Kashmir not want to merge their identity into the greater glory of the Indian nation? Why do our beloved security forces have to take shelter behind the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, time and again, for their actions in the Northeast, besides in Kashmir?Other puzzles, too, gnaw at the certainties of facile nationalism: why does a Supreme Court order to ban Jallikattu whip up so much passion in Tamil Nadu as to rouse long-dormant separatist sentiments — how can the love for wrestling a bull be privileged over love for the nation? How can large proportions of Muslims refuse to bow down in song before India personified as the mother? While it is but natural for people of Indian origin in the UK to cheer India in an India vs England cricket match, how can some Muslims in India cheer Pakistan in an India vs Pakistan match?It is not so difficult to understand why the idea of the nation leaves the middle class perplexed. The complexity of the Indian nation eludes professional social scientists. Pop-culture stabs at the task have not made things any simpler: the film Roja that took India by storm, dubbed in different languages from the original Tamil, for example, posited varied meanings for the nation for its different protagonists: it is the husband for the newly wed woman; it is the flag for her kidnapped husband; it is the right to determine their identity for the Kashmiri separatists who kidnap the husband; it is something inferior to essential humanity for the sister of the kidnapperin-chief who frees the captive; it is the sovereign power of the state to crush its opponents or spare a life for the political apparatus.Historians of modern India see the core of Indian nationhood as the unity forged by the subcontinent’s diverse constituents in their collective struggle for freedom from the British. For cultural nationalists, this is not good enough. Hindutva is the core of Indian nationhood, they insist. This is an easy basis on which to build a narrative of a nation whose roots penetrate deep into the past and ramble into antiquity, has been under foreign domination for 10 centuries, and has been denied its fulsome Hindu expression after Independence by pseudo-secularists who show concern for the minorities to cultivate them as vote banks. Modi not just articulated this narrative to emphatic effect in the native idiom, but personified the ambition to pursue material progress, brooking no interference from either pseudo-secularists or selfish folk who privilege their own land and livelihood over the nation’s need to prosper on their land.The middle class is in awe of China’s rise. In Modi, it sees India’s hope of imitating China. If democracy stands in the way of decisive action, action must prevail. Rights and niceties can wait till the nation has prospered. Only because a reviled pseudo-secularist tarnished the slogan identifying the nation with the leader, the middle class does not chant Modi is India, India is Modi.Knowing this, Modi decided to displease the middle class so that he could rope in the poor as his surest support base, via demonetisation: he acted against the illicit rich and the poor fought with him, standing in long lines, suffering unemployment and even destroyed businesses. Yet, a section of the middle class abhors Modi. They are of two kinds: a tiny, cosmopolitan elite, who see Modi’s many supporters as not in consonance with the elite’s “lifestyle values”; and a larger section who sees the nation and democracy in more complex ways.They can empathise with the masses’ impatience with liberal pretence that is unacquainted with India’s history or rich cultural legacy and identifies modernity with westernisation. But they see the need to reject the iniquity and inequality of caste on which the Hindu order was built, in order to create a new, broadbased nation of justice and merit; to valorise India’s unique genius of seeing no deviance in any form of spiritual pursuit, making India the most hospitable region for multiple faiths to coexist in relative harmony, and the need for rigorous democracy to permeate every facet of national life, to make every section of society a genuine stakeholder in collective progress. For them, the question is whether Modi cares for the kind of politics needed to realise such a redemptive vision of the nation.(Editor, Opinion, The Economic Times)