The completion of 75 years of independence in India designed various celebrations under the theme of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav (AKAM). These celebrations started on March 12, 2021, with a countdown of 75 weeks, ending next year on August 15, 2023. This national-level initiative of the Modi government was adopted to highlight the major achievements of the Indian nation during the 75 years while dedicating the central theme of AKAM to the Indian people. These celebrations introduced several steps of the Indian government, like launching a special series of coins with the emblem of AKAM. The coins of Re 1, Rs 2, 5, 10, and 20 with the designs of AKAM appeared in Indian currency in the Ministry of Finance’s ‘Iconic Week Celebrations’. To further motivate the Indian citizens to actively participate in national building, the Modi government launched 12 credit schemes of different departments and ministries under the Jan Samarth Portal. The main idea of AKAM is divided into five different themes: Ideas @75, Resolve @75, Action @75, Achievements @75, and Freedom Struggle. These five themes planned a broader program of different events related to five different fields for recalling the record of 75 years of achievements of Indian nations at the domestic level. The prime minister Narendra Modi highlighted the AKAM in the celebrations of the Indian Platinum Jubilee of independence by saying, “The Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav means elixir of energy of independence; elixir of inspirations of the warriors of freedom struggle; elixir of new ideas and pledges; and elixir of Aatmanirbharta. Therefore, this Mahotsav is a festival of awakening of the nation; festival of fulfilling the dream of good governance; and the festival of global peace and development.” The formal position of the Indian prime minister on the AKAM provided support to the state-level plan of tracing the turning points of Indian history. Modi’s government has integrated its political agenda with the notion of AKAM by focusing on the notion of Aatmanir Bharat, which refers to the idea of a ‘self-reliant India’. This communicated the broader agenda of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s rule to the Indian domestic people and the outside world. The rule of the BJP under the leadership of Modi has been internationally recognised as the populist radical rule of government in which Modi’s radical ideas and their manifestations in mainstream state affairs have disturbed the constitutional foundations of India. The rise of radical ideas and their transformation in Indian society has started an unending process of Hinduization in the indigenous societal structure of India. The advancement of Modi’s ideas across the country directly attacked the secular constitutional values of India under the BJP’s connotations of Hindutva.
Modi’s rule has redefined and restructured the Indian domestic system by supporting and promoting different populist notions such as Achhe Din (Make in India), Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (Save the daughter, Educate the daughter), and Jai Anusandhan (Growth driven by Innovation). The nations targeted the Indian society for the promotion of Modi’s leadership across the Indian society, which is indirectly an attempt to hide the negative/worse impacts of Modi’s version of Hindutva on the Indian domestic political system and the status of New Delhi in the South Asian region. The Modi government also adopted various other slogans to cultivate widespread support of the Indian people living inside and outside India. Presently, the AKAM is the most prominent idea of the Modi regime to divert the attention of the international community and indigenous Indian people away from the actual face of the BJP’s extremist policies. Therefore, a critically analytical examination of the 75 years of independence under the AKAM can rationalise the fact that the BJP-led Modi government has caused great damage to the Indian domestic political system and intensified the regional security environment of the nuclearised subcontinent. The five-point agenda of the AKAM can easily be examined with the help of the actual situation of Indian domestic systems, where a large part of India’s different minorities is suffering due to the arrival of the BJP’s rule in New Delhi. The actual performance of the Modi government and its various radial policies have endangered the status of minorities across Indian society. The first theme of the AKAM talks about the freedom struggle and emphasises the notion of freedom struggle by paying tribute to the people who converted the dream of independence into reality and ended the British colonial rule from the subcontinent. The underlined objective of the Freedom Struggle emphasises India’s independence as the Only-Hindu-Nation because Modi’s vision of independence has jeopardised the presence of non-Hindu minorities across Indian society, and the theme of freedom struggle just identified the people who served the greater Indian interests. The suffering of the Muslim and Sikh communities is an accurate example of this argument which could be further strengthened with the study of various separatist voices of North-Eastern India. The second theme of the AKAM focuses on the growth of different innovative ideas and the promotion of ideals across the Indian society from India @75 to India@100. A period of 25 years is specified in this theme to define the prevalence of supportive ideas in the Indian state and society without noticing the adverse effects of Modi’s radical nationalism on greater values of peace in India. The third theme of the AKAM continued the debate on the 25 future years and focused on India in 2047 after meeting the target of 25 years. The last two themes of the AKAM emphasised the major actions and achievements of the Indian nation parallel to making them the supportive grounds for future plans. Under these themes, the Indian government has arranged various programs and events to communicate the determination of the BJP’s rule for improving New Delhi’s position at domestic and international level. The series of countrywide multileveled events in India under the AKAM are purely planned to project an image of a peaceful and progressive India free-from intra-faith and interfaith clashes. To cultivate countrywide support for the celebration of the Platinum Jubilee, a social campaign, Har Ghar Tiranga, has been started to encourage the people to appreciate and welcome Modi’s vision by hoisting the mark of the 75 years of celebrations in their homes. It is an attempt of the BJP’s rule to suppress the critical segments of Indian society and their varying positions against New Delhi’s contemporary policies under Modi.
A pragmatic appraisal of the AKAM reveals that the 75 years celebration reflects Modi’s policy of placing India at the forefront of global politics with the confidence of completing a quarter century of independence. The quest for acquiring an influential position and prominent status in the developed world has convinced New Delhi, under the leadership of Modi, to highlight the achievements of India and make them available on various official websites of the Indian government. It is a broader plan of the Modi government for turning the attention of the international community from its religiously fanatical ideas and their promotion across the Indian society. Moreover, the situation of the Kashmiri people living under Indian occupational forces is an additional factor seeking impartial responses from the states having close economic and strategic collaborations with New Delhi. The Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) has witnessed a months-long lockdown imposed by the Modi government, which has continued even during the pandemic. In other words, the Indian occupational forces in Kashmir placed the Kashmiri population between corona and curfew during the global health crisis and augmented the massive human rights violations in the IIOJK while continuing New Delhi’s offensive Kashmir policy. The constitutional changes regarding the status of Kashmir and its impacts on the Kashmiri Muslim population further aggravated this situation. The condition of the Muslim population living in India are in effect worse than the Kashmiri people and other minorities of India. The critical circle of international academic communities has started calling it a New India, heavily influenced by Modi’s different national-level initiatives, such as the AKAM. The AKAM initiative continues New Delhi’s global propaganda in which the Indian leadership tries to portray India as an economically developed, socially prosperous, and politically stable nation. While celebrating the completion of 75 years, the Indian government has selected a period of 25 years to achieve unprecedented steps in different fields under the notion of Amrit Kaal. The term Amrit Kaal is a larger part of the BJP’s social campaign and appeared in October 2021 during a Modi speech. The Indian government re-emphasized the idea of Amrit Kaal during the Budget 2022-23 speech by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. The Platinum Jubilee celebration under the Modi government is an illusion of progress introduced and promoted by the BJP government. It is a political tool for cultivating broader support of the general public for Modi’s radical politics, which really will be inefficient in improving the image of Modi’s India at the regional and international levels.
