A perspective on India - Culture and Identity

Disclaimer: I'm not a Hindutva sympathizer, and I'm a de facto Atheist, although I like to call myself a Naturalist, as the word "Atheist" slightly implies as if there's some deity over there and I chose to deny it :-) 

I don't have any trace of Nationalism or Patriotism, and I'm more of a "world citizen" kind of fellow, with a humanist ethical perspective (So you can understand that I discourage any kind of Absolutism or Fundamentalism). Currently, I'm very interested in effects of History and Culture on evolution of Ethics, Individual Identity and Politics, and came across this video today.

Long back, I visited the Janata Party website and I thought this guy is some Hindu fundamentalist. But looks like he's actually not. He could be what I can call a "Cultural Hindu", although I'm interested in his personal level of religiosity.

In this interview with an American journalist, he talks about
1. Caste system - history and present
2. Religious conversions - reasons, speculations and current scenario (Entrepreneurial evangelism)
3. Secularism in India
4. Terrorism
5. Indian identity vs Hindu/Muslim religious identity
6. History of India
7. Current relations with Pakistan, China

He is very knowledgeable, obviously. He also makes some very interesting points on these matters, especially in bringing the identity of India in people. Ambedkar wrote in similar lines in his essays, as I can recall. I think there are allegations against him for hate-speech against Indian Muslims, and a kind of Hindu Zionist attitude, but all I am interested in this interview is his perspective on the above issues.

I think Indian cultural identity and its trend in globalization should be given a different treatment compared to how western culture is treated, due to its diversity, disassociation with religious zeal, and constant reformations (rather digressive reformations) that happened over history. Whenever I read about culture and religion and globalization, I feel the situation in India is not addressed, even in a broader context. I think Indians have very complex perspectives in their cultural identity compared to those in western countries