I’m deeply impressed by Prime Minister Modi’s patronage of Jahan-e-Khusrau, a festival celebrating the syncretic and refined traditions of Urdu culture. Given the backdrop of Babri Masjid’s destruction and the Gujarat riots, both of which left lasting scars, Modi the Wise’s pivot towards fostering a secular, aesthetic Urdu culture is both unexpected and strategic.
In doing so, Hindu-defined India may be poised to accomplish for Urdu culture what the Pahlavis did for Persian—modernizing it, making it sophisticated and aspirational, and removing the excesses of exclusivist religious overtones.
If Pakistan has long seen itself as the custodian of Urdu, Modi is now positioning India as its true inheritor—one that can mainstream it, integrate it, and make it a cultural powerhouse beyond sectarian confines.
I doubt modi would push for it. This is just some ceremonial thing.
maybe but sometimes there is value in the ceremonial as we say saw from the King’s meeting with Zelenskyy