Majoritarian nationalism is complicating India’s China challenge

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Editor's note: In the 2004 Hindi film Swades, Shah Rukh Khan plays NASA scientist Mohan Bhargava who returns home to a village in India. Tired of Mohan’s sharp questions about the way things are in society, a village elder quizzes him: “Kya tum nahi maante humara desh duniya ka sabse mahaan desh hai? [Do you not believe that ours is the greatest country in the world?]” The same question was put to 7,000 Indian adults in April-May this year as part of a new survey for the Stimson Center, a non-profit, nonpartisan think tank based in Washington DC. The response was overwhelmingly nationalistic: 90% strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement that “India is a better country than most other countries”. The other responses were equally troubling. While 69.3% said India “definitely” or “probably” would defeat both China and Pakistan in a war, the figure climbed to 89.1% when it came to defeating only Pakistan. In what should both worry and please Washington DC, 56% said the United States would “definitely” or “probably” help India in the event of a war with …