India’s ascent and Congress culture of self-flagellation

Even as the world begins to acknowledge India’s rise as an economic, digital, and diplomatic power, sections of its own political class seem gripped by an impulse to self-flagellate — a compulsive urge to diminish, discredit, and deconstruct national achievements before a global audience. Political frustration and hate are now refashioned as politics.

This sordid phenomenon was starkly visible during the recently concluded five-day (Feb 16-20, 2026) ‘AI Impact Summit 2026’ held in New Delhi — an event that was neither routine nor ceremonial, but one that signified India’s arrival as a principal stakeholder in the global technological order.

Under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi, the Congress ecosystem chose to transform a global diplomatic and technological congregation into a theatre of ridicule and derision, for itself and the country.

The now-infamous "shirtless protest" orchestrated by members of the Congress youth wing within the precincts of Bharat Mandapam was not an act of democratic dissent in any meaningful constitutional sense. Rather, it was an exhibition of built-in hostility and hatred towards

Prime Minister Modi, which turned into an act that sought to undermine India’s global standing.

This sordid drama was not staged by some local Congressmen on their own. It obviously had support from the top. Rahul expressed support for the Youth Congress protest, describing the participants as "Babbar-sher" (lion-hearted) on February 24.

However, to understand the deeper civilisational implications of this conduct, one must turn to a historical analogy nearly a century old.

In 1927, American author Katherine Mayo published ‘Mother India’, a text that purported to offer a sociological portrait of Indian civilisation. In reality, the book assembled selectively negative data — child marriage, sanitation deficits, caste discrimination — into a sweeping indictment of India’s moral and institutional capacity for self-governance. Its implicit argument was clear: a society so afflicted by internal pathologies was unfit for political independence.

Writing in Young India on 15 September 1927, Mahatma Gandhi famously dismissed the work as a "drain inspector’s report". This phrase was not a rhetorical flourish but a methodological critique. Gandhi did not deny the existence of social problems within Indian society; rather, he objected to their selective amplification and colonial framing as evidence of civilisational inferiority.

Gandhi’s approach was deeply rooted in a vital political insight: true internal reform must come from within a civilisation itself, rather than being exploited by external or domestic forces to undermine its right to self-determination. The colonial authorities aimed to twist India’s social issues into moral justifications for imperial domination.

Today, the political formation that self-claimed genealogical and ideological descent from Gandhi’s legacy — the Congress leadership centred around Rahul Gandhi— appears increasingly inclined to replicate the very epistemic framework that Mahatma Gandhi sought to dismantle.

The controversy involving Galgotias University at the AI Summit — wherein an allegedly Chinese-manufactured robotic dog was displayed as an indigenous innovation — was swiftly extrapolated by Rahul Gandhi into a sweeping denunciation of the summit as a "disorganised PR spectacle" in which Indian data was ostensibly being commodified.

The resemblance to Mayo’s methodological strategy is hard to ignore. In both cases, episodic shortcomings are generalised into systemic incapacity; isolated institutional lapses are reframed as civilisational deficiencies.

While Mayo’s narrative served colonial interests by portraying India as unfit for self-rule, contemporary political rhetoric risks portraying India as unprepared for technological leadership in the emerging digital order.

This is hardly unprecedented. During the 2020 visit of then United States President Donald Trump, sections of the anti-CAA lobby mobilised protests that escalated into violence in parts of Delhi, thereby projecting an image of internal discord before an international audience. The parallels with the present moment are instructive: in both instances, domestic political contestation was internationalised in ways that risked compromising India’s strategic narrative.

It is instructive, in this regard, to recall the exemplary conduct displayed in 1994 when Pakistan sought to internationalise the Kashmir issue at the United Nations Human Rights Commission through the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. Then Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao rose above partisan considerations and entrusted the leadership of India’s delegation in Geneva to Opposition leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The resulting diplomatic intervention successfully neutralised Pakistan’s resolution, securing support even from countries such as China and Iran. The episode remains a testament to a political culture in which national interest superseded party rivalry.

In contemporary India, however, that culture appears increasingly attenuated. The AI Impact Summit, hosted at Bharat Mandapam, attracted global technology leaders from companies such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon, OpenAI, and Anthropic, alongside heads of state including Emmanuel Macron.

Hotel tariffs across Delhi surged dramatically during the summit — five-star accommodations reportedly exceeding `1 lakh per night — reflecting both the scale of participation and the economic opportunities generated by such international engagements.

The summit culminated in the adoption of the New Delhi Declaration, endorsed by nearly ninety countries and international organisations, emphasising the democratic diffusion of AI resources, secure system development, and equitable access to technological innovation. Investment pledges exceeding $250 billion for infrastructure and $20 billion for deep-tech venture capital further underscored global confidence in India’s digital trajectory.

At the same time that Congress operatives chose theatrics over statesmanship, India’s innovators were quietly rewriting technological history. Bengaluru-based startup Sarvam AI — born in 2023 to fulfil the vision of sovereign AI — launched Indus, a 105-billion-parameter large language model-powered AI chat application, at the India AI Impact Summit 2026.

This home-grown chatbot, now available on web and mobile platforms, enters a competitive field dominated by global giants like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic, and distinguishes itself with deep localisation, multilingual support, and Indian-context fluency.

Instead of celebrating how an Indian startup is challenging entrenched tech hegemonies and providing alternatives to Western-centric AI tools, the Congress rhetoric focused on denigrating the summit as a "PR spectacle". Such responses reveal a worldview that is unable to perceive national achievement as anything other than a prop for partisan critique - a stark contrast to nations that celebrate and reinforce indigenous innovation as a core pillar of sovereign strength.

The persistent portrayal of global engagements as public-relations exercises, or of technological collaboration as a compromise of sovereignty, reflects not constructive scepticism but personal prejudices overshadowing principled politics. In the decades following Independence, the world often associated India with mysticism, abject poverty, starvation, snake charmers, and elephant-riding Maharajas. Today, the same nation hosts the G20 Summit and convenes global forums on artificial intelligence governance. That transformation — from a subject of anthropological curiosity to a shaper of technological norms — ought to make every Indian proud.

Ultimately, the challenge confronting India is not merely technological or diplomatic; it is psychological. A nation that aspires to lead cannot afford an internal discourse that equates self-critique with self-denigration, or dissent with disruption.

For when political opposition degenerates into habitual self-flagellation, it ceases to function as a corrective mechanism within democracy and begins, inadvertently, to serve as an amplifier of narratives that question the very legitimacy of national progress.

Nations, much like civilisations, are not undone merely by external adversaries; they are often weakened by an internal elite that develops an inexplicable discomfort with their own country’s success.

Contemporary India, standing at the threshold of technological transformation and geopolitical consolidation, appears to be confronting precisely such a paradox.

The writer is an eminent columnist, former Chairman of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), and the author of ‘Tryst with Ayodhya: Decolonisation of India’ and ‘Narrative ka Mayajaal’; views are personal