"Shining India." So judged the caption on a picture published in newspapers showing former Pakistani foreign minister, Khurshid Kasuri, holding up his book at its launch in Mumbai earlier this month. This picture went viral online and was published in Indian and Pakistani media extensively.

‘Shining’ because India had swept aside growing diplomatic belligerence by the Modi government against Islamabad in recent months to welcome the former top straight-talking Pakistani diplomat tasked by his country with countering New Delhi on the diplomatic stage?

No -- with Kasuri in the same picture was Sudheendra Kulkarni, the head of a local think tank, hosting the launch in defiance of Shiv Sena. The ‘shining’ in the caption alluded to Kulkarni’s face blackened with ink for refusing to refuse Kasuri. Hardly India’s brightest moment or an advertisement representative of mission clarity by a country.

India is a universe in itself. Apart from being all but the most populous single political entity in the world, it is probably also its most plural -- in religious, ethnic, linguist, political, and social terms. Which is just as well that it accords itself as a secular political framework to bind its unruly self together for purposes of collective mission and management.

The last few weeks, however, one can be forgiven for being confused about both the stated mission of India as a secular, inclusive democracy, as well as the route to its legitimately coveted destination of becoming one of the major economic and military powers in the next few decades -- and probably the biggest beneficiary of the 21^st century after China.

 Cliched India

Of late, neither the dominant news nor the views from India seem to match the acknowledged status of the country being the world’s largest democracy and its attendant magnitude of responsibility. The soundbites coming out of India seem to reflect the clichéd view of India in Pakistan as a place where Muslims are persecuted by scheming Hindus.

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An over-simplistic interpretation if there ever was one -- for four of India’s 13 presidents were Muslims (as well as four vice presidents) as opposed to Pakistan’s case where by law a president can only be a male who is not just a Muslim but a good Muslim. No chance of secularism in Pakistan, indeed. India has also elected a Sikh citizen as well as a woman head of state, thereby cementing its credentials of inclusivity and secularism in action.

Which is why it is hard to reconcile the rising tide of Hindu nationalism -- which in itself is fine but perhaps not when driven by governing parties at the national level as a means of pandering to its core constituencies at the cost of clashing with constitutional obligations -- with the political secularism that defines India. The net effect is that this is not just revising the debate in India about the influence of large majorities in plural settings with multiple minorities but also whether doubts about any perceived hidden agendas of the dominant Hindu faith and their representatives in furthering their political influence have any basis.

 Pseudo-secularism?

International media, even other than Pakistan’s, is wondering why intolerance is rising in India where a number of attacks have taken place not only against minorities, particularly Muslims, but also against lower-caste members and even on secularist intellectuals by Hindu chauvinists and see it as part of a disturbing trend that is affecting secularism.

It is difficult to divorce this trend from the perceived averseness of the ruling nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party to condemn the increasingly violent assaults, like the barbaric killing of Mohammad Akhlaq, a Muslim man dragged from his home last month near New Delhi and beaten to death by a mob that suspected him of secretly eating beef.

It took nearly three weeks for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who came to power on the promise of inclusive development, to condemn the killing. This even after the suspicions proved unfounded. And even when he did, Modi’s comments were embarrassingly vague: "It was sad," he said, blaming the opposition’s "pseudo-secularism" as the reason behind their outrage at the murder.

The "S" word -- secularism sits at the heart of the debate in Modi’s increasingly saffron India. The Indians are wont to contemplate secularism as part of their national identity. Indeed, this is encapsulated and guaranteed in the country’s constitution. "If we are less secular, we are less Indian," asserted Tarun Vijay, a union parliamentarian of Modi’s BJP and one of its ideologues, earlier this year.

However, academician Niraja Gopal Jayal of Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi argues that BJP -- feeding from its ideological parent RSS and Shiv Sena -- takes undue advantage of the Indian version of secularism that he says "allows state intervention in the dominant religion" (which is Hinduism) and makes the distinction between it and what it calls "minority rights."

 Back to the future

This type of secularism is different from that of American, French, or British, which mandates the government -- the state -- to be neutral in religious affairs. Ironically, Indian secularism by implication mirrors exemptions in Pakistan’s freedom of expression law (Article 19), which accepts it as a fundamental right but which restricts criticisms of the military, judiciary and even "friends" of Pakistan.

In short, Jayal implies that RSS tends to equate secularism with Hinduism, making it difficult for BJP, a political entity, to deviate from this narrow conclusion. Hence, the growing assertiveness of Hindu nationalism as a means of strengthening secularism as perceived by members and supporters of the RSS-BJP combine.

That’s why Vijay, articulating a severe interpretation of secularism recently said, "Beef eating is a challenge to India, its public display as an act of bravado. It is a political act that has nothing to do with culinary practice or religion."

However, the contours of the developing debate about secularism and its interpretation, the real question seeking an answer is if India will come out of this damaged enough to change its very ethos.

The scale of reaction, including the return of celebrated national awards by dozens of intellectuals from all religious persuasions and outspoken criticism from politicians and larger civil society, including the large cultural and influential entertainment establishments industry, indicates it will not be easy for Modi’s party and ideological cadres to carve out their own version of a form of religious nationalism that even its ‘enemy’ Pakistan is tiring of and starting to discard.

"Today’s India is crying out for a Mahatma who puts compassion and tolerance above all else," says journalist Rajdeep Sardesai while commenting on the recent attacks. That’s the India the world recognises and that is the India Modi’s supporters will like fail to usurp.