India celebrates 78th Independence Day amid 'border, unemployment' concerns

By Ahmad Adil

NEW DELHI (AA) – India is celebrating its 78th Independence Day on Thursday while facing issues over border security and unemployment besides political changes in the region, experts told Anadolu.

For the first time since being elected in 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the nation from the ramparts of the historic Red Fort with a diminished political mandate.

Amid heightened security cover in the capital, some 6,000 guests attended Modi’s address in person.

Apart from the main function in New Delhi, rallies and flag-hoisting ceremonies are being held across the country to mark the day.

“Celebrations will serve as a platform to provide a renewed push to the government’s efforts towards transforming the country into a developed nation by 2047,” said the Defense Ministry.

The South Asian country attained independence following the end of British colonial rule in the sub-continent on this day in 1947.

-‘Many challenges’

On its 78th Independence Day, New Delhi-based analyst Niranjan Sahoo told Anadolu that India is faced with “many challenges,” including unemployment and border security issues.

The results of the general elections in June gave the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) 240 seats in the Lok Sabha, or lower house of parliament -- 32 short of the majority it would need to form a government on its own.

It was only with the support of its partners that the Modi-led government was able to secure its third term with 293 seats.

“Internally, India has many uphill challenges,” said Sahoo.

He said the foremost challenge is “securing borders (Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh facing China) and maintaining political stability in turbulent Manipur and Jammu and Kashmir.”

The northeastern Indian state of Manipur saw ethnic clashes last year, while Jammu and Kashmir has remained without an elected government since 2018.

India and China are also entangled in a border dispute along the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh.

“India's border regions, particularly the northeast, face the most serious challenges owing to the tense situation in Myanmar and Bangladesh,” he said.

Sahoo also said that “rising unemployment,” particularly youth unemployment in the demographically significant north, is becoming a major headache for policy makers in New Delhi.

While the Modi government “claims to have created millions of jobs in the last few years, this hardly raises confidence, given the number of youth protests one has witnessed in northern states in the last few years,” he said.

According to government data released in July, the unemployment rate in the world’s most populous nation has been on a “declining trend over the years.”

- Political changes in neighborhood

While Human Rights Watch noted that hate speech “fueled” Modi’s election campaign early this year, Sahoo said “refugees and illegal migration challenges are very real and tricky, given that the situations are dramatically transforming” in neighboring Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Myanmar, which is entangled in an internal ethnic conflict, has seen people taking refuge in India.

Early this month, India’s longtime ally, former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, fled the capital Dhaka and is living in New Delhi following deadly protests that ended her 15-year-long rule on Aug. 5.

India is “struggling to manage its relations with Bangladesh in the background of the sudden ouster of Sheikh Hasina, a long-time ally of India, and the possible takeover of power by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its alliance partners,” said Sahoo.

With developments in Maldives, which returned Indian soldiers home, and now in Bangladesh, said the analyst, “India's neighborhood policy faces the gravest challenge.”

New Delhi must “walk extra miles to reset the policy,” he added.