Brand India: From western aspiration to Indian assertion

I was born in the early part of the year of the formation of Bangladesh, after the Liberation War ended, in a sleepy town in the foothills of the Himalayas. While growing up, I have a vivid memory of Brand India in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s from a young Indian perspective.

My parents got me educated in an English-medium school, which was a dream of every middle-class parent then. In a town which had The Doon School and Welham Boys’ and Girls’ School, where the children of those who ruled India went to study then. Even after a quarter of a century of gaining independence, Brand India, from an Indian perspective, was to be led by people who knew English well. And this reflected in everything else. Mimicking the West was the path to having everything in Brand India, everything that mattered: money, power and position. And these urban Indians, who were dreaming of being the leaders in India, used to listen to The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd, watch Hollywood movies, and wear bell-bottoms and skirts.

With my parents’ deep-rooted connection with their village, I also happened to see the other Brand India: India which lived in houses made of mud walls and thatched roofs made of straw, where kerosene lamps were the source of light in homes at night, and the villages used to be pitch dark, so everyone tried to reach home before sunset. This India, where 80% of the population lived, was oblivious to the mad rush for everything Western. These two Indias lived in isolation, having no or limited means of communication to bridge the two; they rarely met.

The India of those days was such that brilliant kids, be it from urban or rural India, after finishing a course at IIT, invariably ended up in the US, at least 50% of them, as Brand India had very little to offer them. This was an improvement, as more than 90% landed in the US from the first batch of IIT Delhi.

From a global perspective, Brand India, after the formation of Bangladesh, was seen as a dominant leader in South Asia, with influence in neighbouring countries. Yet India’s non-alignment was viewed with some scepticism, given its history of a pro-Soviet tilt.

Fast forward to the early 2000s. I got my son admitted to a school in the heart of New Delhi, which taught in Hindi medium until Class 5, and deliberately so, because Brand India was awakening to its Indianness. While this school was established in 1958 and named after the first Home Minister of India, such kinds of schools had started coming up, which balanced both Indian culture and English teaching. This shift seems to have been catalysed by the economic liberalisation of 1991. Even then, Westward-looking Indian middle-class parents shied away from such schools. It was a time when Brand India, from the Indian perspective, was finding its Indian roots yet struggling to have a clear identity.

This was the time when Indians started taking pride in their Indianness, yet had a need to embrace the West to be seen as upwardly mobile. The gap between urban and rural India was being bridged, and thatched roofs and mud walls were changing to brick and concrete. 70% of India still lived in villages; however, they now, along with kerosene lamps, also had electric bulbs, which sometimes used to glow when there was electricity. Brand India, from an Indian perspective, was beginning to find its positioning.

From a foreign perspective, Brand India shifted from an image of exotic poverty to that of a rising economic powerhouse, which happened due to the global IT boom, outsourcing and corporate success stories of the likes of Tatas and Infosys. Brand India was viewed internationally as a hub for cost-effective business solutions and a hub for smart engineering and tech talent.

Fast forward to 2026. Almost everyone, irrespective of living in rural or urban India, has a smartphone, access to low-cost internet, and is active on social media. The gap between the two Indias has blurred, while still 60% plus Indians live in villages. From an Indian perspective, Brand India is surging ahead, is progressing, and has become a distinctive brand where Indians are taking pride in coming back to India. Reverse brain drain has become a reality. Yet the English programming still runs, while everything Western is no longer as attractive, and India has started to take pride in everything Indian. The haunting presence of hundreds of years of British Raj is still there.

Internationally, Brand India is a rising economic power, a tech and digital innovator, and vibrant cultural soft power.

From here, Brand India can firm up its strong brand persona only when the lingering shadow of the fact that India can only be ruled by those who have English and the West within them is shaken away completely. Then Indians would be proudly sending their kids to study in schools which teach them in their mother tongue, and English will no longer guarantee success, money and power.

Brand India then will have a persona which has distinct Indian character, core Indian values and a unique Indian voice.

Happy Independence Day!!