“the most important festival in Eastern UP and Bihar is Dussehra”

The most important festival in Eastern UP and Bihar by an order of magnitude is actually Chhatth. Dussehra is certainly more important than Diwali, though.

My college in UP had a full 9 day vacation for Navratri + Dussehra but only 2 days for Diwali. Almost reverse for my friends in Delhi.

For example why do they need to “import” Ram to Bengal, rather than Durga which they can do easily (i think) considering the atheist-ness of the ruling left and the image of mamta being muslim appeaser, all this years. Why havent they tried to use Shiva for example , considering his more universal subaltern appeal(greater than Ram) . Why havent they used Krishna for the yadavs . Would (trying to) appropriate them a double edged sword? Perhaps with Krishna it wouldn’t work considering Krishna is not that subaltern but a Hanuman or a Shiva would.”

This is a good set of questions and I hope someone more knowledgeable (Slapstik ?) can expound on it. AFAIK, the most important festival in Eastern UP and Bihar is Dussehra and the native cultures there are shaped much more by Shaktism and Shaivism than Vaishnavism. Perhaps the shift away from the native Hindu traditions to a more NW form is an effect of the shift from Maithili/Bhojpuri to Hindi ? All the Maithil devotional songs I have come across are dedicated to Durga.

On Modi’s Krishna appeal, i think its a gujrati thing (just like he invoking Patel,Gandhi). Also non-indic language is reading too much (he uses words like “Fakeri” as well)

To me one of the most fascinating thing is BJP unwilling-ness/inability (perhaps) to appropriate more gods in its political project.

For example why do they need to “import” Ram to Bengal, rather than Durga which they can do easily (i think) considering the atheist-ness of the ruling left and the image of mamta being muslim appeaser, all this years. Why havent they tried to use Shiva for example , considering his more universal subaltern appeal(greater than Ram) . Why havent they used Krishna for the yadavs . Would (trying to) appropriate them a double edged sword? Perhaps with Krishna it wouldn’t work considering Krishna is not that subaltern but a Hanuman or a Shiva would.

These questions fascinate me.

Yes, that shift to Krishna in his speech did not go unnoticed. BJP rarely invokes him. He also used quite a lot of non-Indic vocabulary that he usually wouldnt (Megh Raja shareek hone aaye hain for example). He was back to Hindutva baiting with ‘secular jamaat’ though.

I got my numbers straight from Google’s public data explorer (World Bank). See: https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=tourists&fdim_y=arrivals_departures:1&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:IND&ifdim=region&hl=en&dl=en&ind=false

Yes, and the difference in those indicators is driven heavily by revenues and head starts. For example, Haryana’s fertility rate is 2.2 because of its superior rural economy and Gurugram revenues. At independence, states like UP and Bihar had much poorer indicators than those in the West and South, and this was rooted in the policies of British India.

I would agree with you that NW India is more patriarchal and racially charged. But that has little to do with governance.

Tariffs are no barometer of openness. They are policy devices to achieve political or strategic goals. In India’s case they are employed to protect local industry, not isolate the country.

This is more about networks and contact. FDI and tourist numbers are much better indicators.

While tourist numbers have increased, this is not a fair comparison.
The former number is for foreign tourist arrivals (FTA) whereas the latter is for International Tourist Arrivals (ITA), which includes NRIs as well.

More details here: http://tourism.gov.in/sites/default/files/Other/ITS_Glance_2018_Eng_Version_for_Mail.pdf

They don’t even believe in delegating to experts. Another commenter had a great comment about how Modi and Shah run things like a mafia. This is why Rahul Gandhi was a better candidate. It’s ok to be dumb, as long as you are aware of it. It’s dangerous to be dumb and not be aware of it.

It’s a perception driven by virtually every meaningful indicator of meeting developmental goals.