KM Rakesh

Academy Award winner A.R. Rahman is perhaps the best-known mainstream Indian popular music composer in much of the world. The diminutive composer from the South Indian city of Chennai, in the state of Tamil Nadu, has to his credit two Oscars, two Grammys, one BAFTA, and one Golden Globe among his collection so far.

The fanfare that India mounted to receive Russian President Vladimir Putin on a two-day visit was only matched by the attention it received in the West and its media over the world’s largest democracy organizing such a grand welcome to the man whom they singularly blame for the Ukraine war and tense security climate in the region.

The oft-repeated claim of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its entire ecosystem is that the 21st century belongs to Indians and their civilization. When Rishi Sunak walked into 10 Downing Street with his billionaire India-born wife, Indians burst crackers and celebrated. Some saw it as the arrival of the Indian moment in Britain, the colonial power that once ruled the subcontinent.