Seven to One
Tomorrow, Andy Burnham will be sworn in as Britain’s seventh prime minister in ten years. Keir Starmer resigned ten years, almost to the week, after the Brexit referendum. The CNN piece I read over breakfast had all but reconciled Britain to middle power status, and nobody in London seems to find the phrase strange anymore. Britain will have had seven prime ministers this decade. India has had one since 2014.
Everything I have been thinking about this week turns out to be the same question at different scales. The state of India. The state of Britain. The state of my own small republic of letters. What does continuity buy, and what does churn cost? Delhi will not let me put the question down.
Oh, could I have one more? Yes, please. Thank you. My fourth cup of sambar. Right now, it is sublime.
South Indian meals are, I always say, like Arabic food: a very good balance of taste and health, neither sacrificed to the other.
Ghalib at the Airport
The first thing that met me in Delhi was Ghalib. His line is the city’s standing epigraph: Ik roz apni rooh se poocha, ki Dilli kya hai? To yun jawab mein keh gaye: yeh duniya mano jism hai aur Dilli uski jaan. I asked my soul, what is Delhi? It replied: the world is the body, and Delhi its life. My own origins are in Delhi. Coming in past the airport and the diplomatic enclave, the couplet does not read as nostalgia. It reads as a forecast. The airport connects this city to everywhere; the enclave fills everyone with the Ghost of Lutyen; Delhi, in a way, is the soul of the world, and the capital of a fledgling superpower.
Did Modi make India great again?
The Quantum of Greatness
In 2013-14, India was roughly the eleventh largest economy in the world. The government’s end-of-year review for 2025 declared it the fourth, at 4.18 trillion dollars, past Japan, behind only the United States, China and Germany. The government, for its part, projects 7.3 trillion dollars by 2030 and Germany overtaken within three years.
Every forecaster of consequence, the IMF, the World Bank, Moody’s, S&P, Fitch, the ADB, puts Indian growth for 2026 somewhere between 6.2 and 7.4 per cent, the fastest of any major economy, and has done for years. That is the continuity dividend in its purest form: eleven consecutive budgets from the same government, no coalition collapse mid-reform, no Truss interlude, no markets pricing in the next resignation. Compounding is boring. That is rather the point. Britain’s decade was interesting.
The State That Builds
Scale is the headline; state capacity is the story. The dullest subject in political economy is the one this decade most changed. The Indian state learned to deliver things.
Take the payment rails first, because they are taped to the counter of this restaurant. The QR code beside the till, is a terminal of the largest instant-payment system on earth. UPI now carries roughly 49 per cent of the world’s real-time payment volume, about 85 per cent of India’s digital payments, some 66 crore transactions every day, and has grown twelve-thousand-fold in a decade. The IMF calls it the global benchmark. Frenchmen and Emiratis can pay through it.
The physical plumbing kept pace with the digital. On the government’s count the country’s airports have roughly doubled since 2014, from 74 to about 160; one of them greeted me with Ghalib. The national highway network has grown by more than half, from about 91,000 kilometres to about 146,000, at a construction pace that touched 30-odd kilometres a day. More than half a billion bank accounts were opened for people who had never had one; an identity number now covers more than a billion; cooking gas, toilets and piped water reached crores of rural households through delivery machinery that mostly works, which in India is the miracle. And in 2023 Chandrayaan-3 put a lander near the lunar south pole, the first country to manage it, on a budget smaller than a Hollywood film’s.
The World Comes to Delhi
The diplomatic enclave I drove past is multi-alignment made concrete. This is a capital that sits in the Quad with Washington and Tokyo, photographs itself at the SCO with Moscow and Beijing, and sees no contradiction. It bought Russian crude at scale through Western displeasure, took Washington’s tariffs last August over exactly that, and kept buying. It hosted the G20 in 2023 and used the chair to walk the African Union into permanent membership, a fact Africa remembers. It signed a trade pact with the Emirates and built a Hindu temple in Abu Dhabi. Its diaspora is the world’s largest and remits well north of 100 billion dollars a year, the biggest such flow on the planet.
And it has shown reach of the harder kind. Fourteen months ago, after the Pahalgam massacre, Operation Sindoor sent Indian strikes across the border at terror infrastructure. We wrote about Sindoor at length at the time, and I will not relitigate the doctrine here. The point is a state willing to accept escalation risk in pursuit of deterrence, and an arms industry that noticed. Defence exports were 686 crore rupees in 2013-14. In the financial year just ended they touched 38,424 crore, a record, up 63 per cent in a single year, going to more than 80 countries, with the public-sector yards’ exports up 151 per cent in the year after Sindoor. The defence budget itself has grown from 2.5 lakh crore to 6.8 lakh crore across the decade. One may like or dislike what that buys. It is not the balance sheet of a middle power.
Here comes my filter coffee. Thank you. Thank you.
Steelmaning our arguments
The fourth largest economy is also, per head, a poor country: around 140th in the world in per capita terms. The growth is real and its distribution is lopsided; consumption tells a K-shaped story; manufacturing’s share of output has sat stubbornly in the mid-teens through a decade of Make in India, which is why the jobs question will not go away no matter how many airports open.
The institutional column is darker. In April, Reporters Without Borders ranked India 157th of 180 countries for press freedom, down six places in a year, in the category the index calls very serious, citing the judicial harassment of independent media through defamation and national security statutes. V-Dem has filed India under electoral autocracy since 2021. The investigative agencies show a durable appetite for opposition politicians. Defenders answer with turnout and with the fact that power still changes hands, and they are not wrong: in 2024 the voters themselves pruned Modi’s majority, and he has governed since in coalition, dependent on allies in Andhra and Bihar. Uncontested was always the wrong word for this tenure. Undisplaced is the right one.
And undisplaced keeps being renewed. Two months ago the BJP won West Bengal, the state it could never crack, taking 207 of 294 seats on a turnout of about 94 per cent, the highest ever recorded in an Indian election, with Mamata Banerjee losing her own seat in Bhabanipur to Suvendu Adhikari, who now governs the state. The first right-wing government in Bengal’s history, in the old citadel of the Left. The pollsters missed it by more than fifty seats. Whatever this dominance is, gravity or greatness or something less lovely, the electorate keeps voting for its continuation.
From We to I
But since Ruchira’s passing, I want to be more personal in my connections and more intentional about what Brown Pundits is for. I try not to meditate too much on the blog, and then I do, and it becomes a little autobiographical. That is the truth of it: in our constructs, we put so much of ourselves into it.
The Last Vestige of the Blogosphere
We are in a post-factionalism phase, and it has clarified something for me. Building a community matters more to me than building a rival to the Juggernaut, or whatever. We are the last vestige of that era of the Brown Blogging Dynasts and that is not nothing.
Why, in an essay whose title contains Modi, am I spending words on a blog?
What a decade of continuity does for a state, a community does for a small republic of letters. Britain churns prime ministers; the internet churned its communities; both lost something they have never properly priced. Brown Pundits is my love letter to India perhaps..
What Twitter Ate
There was something idiosyncratic and very homely about the early days of the internet. People could know each other. Twitter ate that world. Brown Pundits, in a way, should preserve it: keep a room where it survives away from predatory capitalism of the trillionaire class.
The Line between a Person and their Ideas
Keeping such a room requires a rule, and I have been meditating on the exchange between online safety and precedent. The rule is simple. Individuals must and always should be respected; there is never an excuse for crossing that line. Ideas enjoy no such immunity. Not all opinions and beliefs need to be respected. They should not be flagrantly disrespected, but they can be actively questioned.
Brown Pundits started as a diaspora blog. We look at things from a perspective of Western values, especially on gender.
DLV is an academic powerhouse; why should I yearn for a traditional Patriarchy, where that would be denied to her? The deeper point is that difficult conversations can happen without anyone being diminished.
Velocity and Quality
I have stopped caring how active the comment threads are. If you want high velocity, there was a time when the threads ran to 200 comments a day. That is a very different quality of conversation. Different, not better. This blog is about good quality writing, and quality does not scale the way velocity does.
Two Thousand and Two Thousand
My newsletter grew to a considerable height: roughly 2,000 subscribers, against the blog’s 2,000 readers a day. Readers replied to the newsletter (Ruchira used to). But I do not know why Brown Pundits always grabs my attention. On the blog you get the stimulus of the community, and community is everything at the end of the day. There are those who remember you, and you who remember them.
Middle Power, Great Power
Britain is reconciling herself, in the pages of CNN, to being a middle power, and her political culture has made the reconciliation easy to believe: a resignation ritual so familiar that the staff know where to stand on the pavement. The enclave I drove past was laid out by an empire that once audited its Indian possessions from London; the auditors’ successors now count their own prime ministers by the decade.
India, meanwhile, under a tenure, a reign really, that has run undisplaced since 2014, pruned in 2024, renewed in Bengal in 2026, is being asked the opposite question: is she becoming a great power?
Did Modi make India great again? I borrowed it from an American slogan of restoration, and it does not quite fit. Restoration is Britain’s temptation, not India’s. On Ghalib’s arithmetic, Delhi never stopped being the world’s life; what the last decade did was reconnect the body.
A state that learned to deliver, an economy compounding past its old masters, a foreign policy with reach, and, in the other column, a poor country per head with a press ranked 157th and agencies that lean on the opposition. Becoming is the honest word.
Greatness of this kind accumulates: in airports and enclaves, in payment rails and export manifests, in students and capital and diplomats, in the dull compounding fact of continuity.
Tomorrow Britain swears in her seventh prime minister of the decade. India has had one since 2014. I do not offer the arithmetic as a verdict on either country; stability can curdle, and churn can renew. But sitting here, over the last of the filter coffee, the couplet at the airport reads less like poetry and more like reporting. I asked my soul, what is Delhi? The world is the body, and Delhi its life.
It is very disingenuous for a country to quote Ghalib at the airport while making the lives of its own Muslim citizens miserable. Hindu nationalism has no place for real living Muslims but of course it wants to appropriate Urdu’s greatest poet.
The BJP won West Bengal. But your essay does not acknowledge the systematic disenfranchisement of that state’s Muslims through the SIR process.
On “traditional patriarchy”: My great-aunt was a professor of pathology. My mother is an accomplished medical professional as are my father’s sisters. There are many many upper-middle class Pakistani women who are accomplished professionals. They are also good wives and mothers. There’s nothing wrong with that. Marriage is essentially an arrangement to perpetuate the species. That’s the whole point.
Once again, if someone doesn’t want to be a wife or a mother that is her right.
It’s fine to love India. But engaging in cheerleading for the Modi regime just reveals one’s own partisan preferences.
Where are the lives of Indian Muslims, “miserable?”
This isn’t to say that there are significant issues but everywhere we go, we see the the largest minority in the world (Indian Muslims).
Also this isn’t a puff piece on the Modi era but it just so happens that India has become richer, more confident and more “herself” under his tenure.
“Where are the lives of Indian Muslims miserable?”– Is this a serious question?
Muslims have been lynched on suspicion of eating beef. Muslims have been made to say “Jai Shree Ram” etc. Currently, the number of Muslim representatives in the Indian parliament is at its lowest proportion (none in the ruling party).
It’s fine for you to have whatever views you want to have on Modi. But you are not a Muslim. Hindu nationalism clearly treats Muslims as the “internal enemy”. The anti-Pakistan rhetoric and behavior is also related to the anti-Muslim rhetoric.
Becoming richer is not everything. Modi has systematically destroyed Nehruvian secularism.
I feel the thread is going to be diverted into a well-worn direction..
Also this constant communalisation is a little tiring.
Muslims are very prominent in India; what we noticed just how many Arabs & Central Asians flow into Delhi..
Why is it “communalization” to note that the proportion of Muslim representatives in India’s parliament is the lowest it has been historically. This is simply a fact.
You ask did Modi “make India great again?”. I would push back by asking great for whom? Arguably not for Muslims and for other minorities.
If you ask Muslims if they prefer the secular nationalism of the Indian National Congress or the Hindu nationalism of the BJP, you will get a very clear answer.
Modi is not known as the “Emperor of Hindu Hearts” for nothing.
Look at the numbers, everything else is hot air.
.
I have said this before and I will say it again – there is an incredibly strong rational argument to be made that the partition of India saved the subcontinent muslims from the horrors of majority muslim rule.
The Bengali muslim had to endure a near genocide as thanks for its spearheading the Pakistan secession movement, and the post 1971 rump-state of Pakistan and its citizens – you can argue that the exploitation, state persecution that those folks have suffered – is a lot worse than what Pakistani propaganda accuses India of against Indian muslims – in J&K state, or in rest of India.
For all of the challenges and unfortunate prevalence of prejudice in Indian society, the Indian muslim has had, and continues to enjoy, orders of magnitude, more Azaadi than his Pakistani counterpart. From religious freedom, to political rights, constitutional or otherwise, to economic access, and beyond. This undeniable fact is what drives RW Pakistanis into utter derangement and forces them to concoct and exaggerate propaganda about the current state of Indian secularism.
Right. So Muslims are not being lynched? They’re not being made to say “Jai Shree Ram”? Not being made to sing “Vande Matram”? A man who was in charge during the Gujarat pogrom is not a three time PM?
In the words of another commenter on this site this is textbook “gaslighting”.
Fun fact: They’re not! Incidents of communal violence are at historic lows. We can’t say that about PoJK can we?
How many Kashmiris are dead at Pakistani hands and all you can find courage is speak about is Muslims on the other side of a border. Perhaps its time to look inward instead of constantly engaging in online feuds.
do we have numbers on this; can you write about it?
Whatever issues the people of AJK have, they do not want to be ruled by India.
The people of AJK know what India has done to their brothers and sisters in India-Occupied Kashmir.
Any time a right wing Indian Hindu brings up AJK, it is not in good faith.
the first line was removed; it felt excessive. one can make one’s point without pointedness.
Remove whatever you like.
Indians speaking about AJK are not speaking in good faith. They have an anti-Pakistan agenda.
First of all, they call it “PoJK”. It’s called AZAD Kashmir.
presumably both are administered?
Yes, of course the UN uses “Indian-Administered” and “Pakistani-Administered”.
But the Indians here cannot get upset when I say India-Occupied Kashmir–the official Pakistani name and then turn around and use “PoJK”.
Anyway, their opinions on Azad Kashmir mean nothing. They come out of an anti-Pakistan agenda.
Its your faith needs to be challenged more than mine considering its your army that is happy mowing down protestors. Its gotten so bad that that there have been multiple calls within the protests themselves asking for aid and assistance from Bharat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13qWptq7bsI
Communal riots are not happening but Communal hatred and low intensity clashes are happening still.
The police itself is hesitant to register cases against certain non Muslim and non christian organization’s which is why they are not showing up in cases registered.
yes it’s becoming “invisibilised.”
alot of the Minorities weren’t necessarily capitalist-corporatist but more traditional-socialist
do we know why they are lower? is it reporting or better Law & Order.
I remember Archer had some insights on this
The reality is that even the sangh wants to minimize these incidents. There’s been a slow rise in the number of police per 100k people over the course of last couple decades. But also the govts aren’t as sympathetic with anti-social and riot-encouraging activities anymore. So effectively all the cow vigilante stuff gets a lot of coverage but its largely done by volunteers who tend to hand over the judgement to the police. A lot of my friends relatives have been killed in volunteer work regarding saving cows, so I can understand having the cops being a large part of that whole chain.
what is the lynching numbers? every innocent life lost is a tragedy..
Just a few years ago, there was a famous case of a man being lynched on suspicion of eating beef. The response of the Indian police was to test the meat and find out it wasn’t beef. The man was dead by that point.
This happened in Dadri.
The Delhi pogroms occurred as recently as 2020.
To pretend that members of the ruling party do not engage in virulent anti Muslim rhetoric is “gaslighting”.
that’s one instance? in a country of 1.8billion
it’s completely wrong but must be taken in context
The Delhi pogroms are not “one instance”
There is a pattern of BJP politicians making anti-Muslim remarks and then people lynching Muslims.
Somehow, I don’t think that if there were an instance of Hindus being lynched in Pakistan the reaction would be “one instance? In a country of 255 million”.
There would be a hue and cry here.
Aasia Bibi was a decade-long incident?
There you go. According to your own logic that’s “one instance? In a country of 255 million”
Pakistan is an Islamic Republic. India is a constitutionally secular state. Constitutionally secular states have to be held a higher standard.
Not that I’m defending lynching anyone in Pakistan.
All XTM did was write an article on his experience during his travel to India. You have an issue if something positive is said about India and if anything at all is said about Pakistan. What sort of red lines are these? It kills all conversation..
I don’t have an issue if “anything positive” is said about India.
This essay reads like cheer leading for the Modi regime.
I’m not going to belabor this further.
on a serious note what if Pakistan had had a Muslim Modi since 2014..
if you avoid his Hindu nationalism etc; would you think he has been a good leader?
Pakistan has had 4PMs in the same time (2 are brothers); Pakistan should be at 7-8 annual economic growth (at least)..
“Delhi pogroms”. Hindu cop tortured and murdered by Muslim mob led by an elected politician.
https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/how-delhi-police-proved-case-against-ex-aap-leader-tahir-hussain-in-2020-delhi-riots-11775002
Pak patriotic derangement syndrome and dishonesty on display.
There have been many more, but the more striking thing is that those who do this are supported by the state.
There have been instances of cow vigilantes who on camera beat up people, put them in their trunks and in extreme cases even kill them only to be released on bail and celebrated.
The number of instances which may or may not be reported hide this culture of impunity that has developed solely around hurting others.
Many cows die due to eating plastics, even in gaushalas but that does not stir anyone’s conscience.
Exactly. Anti-Muslim violence is state supported. As you say, those who indulge in this end up being released on bail and garlanded.
yes that was tragedy/atrocity. So was Kanhaiya Lal (Udaipur), Kolbe (Maharashtra), Kamlesh Tiwari and others beheading by Sar tan se juda brigade.
I understand that for the oppression and kleptocracy in Pakistan to be justified, you have a desperate need to believe that muslims in India are ‘being made to say Jai Shree Ram’ and other such nonsense.
Swallowing the bitter truth, that the Indian muslim is way more Azaad under a secular-hindu dispensation, than in “Islamic (lol) Pakistan”, can cause all sorts of derangement. And as we see, education, exposure to Umreeeka, none of this can prevent it.
Lol
Man does not live by bread alone but sometimes he does..
“I believe the world is beautiful and that poetry, like bread, is for everyone.”
Bingo. Nobody’s pretending that communal issues aren’t a thing in India, but the one-note weaponized bad faith rhetoric is……well-worn.
“bad faith”– This is passive aggressive. Don’t do this again.
Your takes on the Islamic Republic of Pakistan are in “bad faith”. So there.
I’ve read your acrimonious exchanges with Calvin. The way you attack anyone who isn’t a Modi bhakt is a sight to behold. He’s not even a Pakistani or a Muslim.
Perhaps we should have an independent Baloch commentator as well so we can see how good faith the Islamic “Republic” of Pakistan is.
we are always hunting for my commentators 🙂
Admin Note: Kabir don’t communalise again.
RNJ is not a bhakt at all. he feels fairly independent. he’s said he thinks there is a decent Opposition in India, which he is sort of right on.
it feels like a mischaracterisation of his viewpoints.
Sure. Just read his acrimonious exchanges with Calvin. He has used the phrase “woko haram” for Indian National Congress.
that’s humorous?
Humor is subjective.
The way he attacks anyone who doesn’t defend the ruling regime in India is truly a sight to behold.
more outright lies and mischaracterization of my perspective. I have consistently and repeatedly criticized the BJP including Modi.
But hey, it suits your dishonest attack agenda to falsely paint me as a blind one-eyed supporter of the “ruling regime”.
What you do not realize is that such silly lies and obfuscation hurt and undermine your own credibility far more than anything else.
Sure. The way you go after anyone who doesn’t adhere to an Indian right-wing perspective is truly something. Any remotely objective reader can figure that out.
Calvin is neither a Muslim nor a Pakistani. He is a fellow citizen of your country.
This …is a mischaracterization of what I said. And given your consistent attempts to attack me, it reads intentional.
I said that under Rahul Gandhi’s leadership the Congress has copy-pasted ‘Woko Haram’ rhetoric, which in fact is not progressive or beneficial to the supposed goal of uplifting the not-so-strong sections of Indian society.
And my …disagreements and differences of opinion with anyone on these threads are just that – They aren’t “attacks” on anyone. One should learn to debate the opinion, and not the man/person delivering them.
Not everything has to be taken personally.
I edited your last line; please don’t repeat that again..
“Woko Haram” is a right-wing phrase. Who do you think you’re kidding?
And by the way, you are on record of accusing Agni of being a “feminazi”. Of course, that’s between you and her but this is not a ‘difference of opinion” that is an attack.
lol, “look he’s at it again”.
Kabir tbh, I dont think that exchange was acrimonious but that is mainly because I have learnt not to get emotionally invested in discussions on the internet.
And it is better to call out bad arguments, and have a laugh at them. I was not defending the INC but pointing out to larger perception warping that is ongoing the examples if which are seen even here.
You’re a bigger person than I am. That was an extremely nasty exchange he had with you.
Anyone who disrespects me in that fashion very quickly learns not to to do it again.
Literally none of the people on this website have learned that.
Uh huh. All that talk just to devolve to the usual Punjabi “Bahar mil tu” type nonsense.
LOL
OK, ceasefire please Kabir and OM-3.
thank you
but Kabir needs to stop using heightened language.. it is starting from there
RNJ & especially OM don’t feed it.. you know there are admins about, there will also be 10 comment fines there..
I think the comments on this thread are a textbook example of how Kabir plies his provocative agenda and succeeds in derailing discussions.
Recall that he initiated communalization, with outright bigoted statements. He repeatedly attacked me personally by blatant mischaracterizations of my opinions.
personal attack and abuse. From someone who lost his editorial privileges for playing with anonymous racist comments about black-skinned hindus.
Admin Note: let’s stop please
Admin Note: Stop Please now
There was a ceasefire and it was working perfectly. There is no need for you to engage with me.
It’s easy to disrespect someone over the internet. Try doing it in real life. I have no problem putting people in their place.
Indeed. The number of Arabs who come to India for medical tourism is non-trivial. SoBo has hotels specifically catering to the Arab crowd that comes to Mumbai.
there is also Muslim privilege; the richer and more foreign a Muslim, the more palatable they are..
it is a particular type of Islam that is problematic. might be related to caste.
The ones I ran into a few years ago in SoBo did not seem to be that wealthy. They were also super shocked to see men and women intermingle so comfortably in addition to the crazy religious diversity. One lady actually asked me this very curious question, clearly taken aback by what she considered unusual?!
Communalism js not a small thing, it can and will derail all progesss you credit this govt for .
made a light edit..
Kabir claiming that “any and all hindus” opinions on Balochistan or Pakistan, are by virtue of their religion and nationality quote “in bad faith” – thats…….quite unparliamentary, to say the least.
But we know what he is, at this point. So its not really a surprise.
where did he say that?
https://www.brownpundits.com/2026/07/19/did-modi-make-india-great-again/#comment-140228
that’s an absurd and highly communal comment. it’s been removed. sorry for not spotting it earlier.
@Kabir don’t make such communal comments going forward; they are in extremely poor taste and make the space unsafe.
Unsafe?
I’m the only person here who received an actual threat of violence.
So please don’t tell me about unsafe.
“poor taste” is subjective. Much of what is said about Pakistan and Pakistanis here is in “poor taste”.
The ceasefires were working well. I don’t know why you felt the need to remove them.
Pakistan isn’t even mentioned in this post fwiw..
Indians have no locus standi on Balochistan. Your only interest is to take territory away from the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Not going to happen.
It’s like Pakistanis having that kind of interest in Manipur or Nagaland.
Balochistan is unequivocally part of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Kashmir is a Disputed Territory.
Kabir your last line sounds threatening; this has been removed. Don’t use such language please. We don’t want to tone police unnecessarily.
What’s “threatening”? Anyone who disrespects me to my face learns not to do it again.
I’m not going to tolerate the slightest disrespect from anyone.
Kabir we removed your last 10 comments as they are objectively threatening.
Please desist or the penalty will double.
You can remove every comment I’ve ever made on this blog. It’s your right.
I do find it very interesting that people are allowed to be nasty to me. But when I respond, I’m suddenly the problem.
The ceasefires were working perfectly and preventing all this drama.
as mentioned, the ceasefires are meant to protect the person, not the opinion.
you know about the protocol to report incidents; we have a very vigilant admin system, we don’t need vigilantism..
As demonstrated, it’s very easy for people to slip from debating an opinion to attacking the person.
I do not have the time or the inclination to send you emails constantly. I have other things to do.
If you don’t have the time for that; then also don’t have the time for vigilantism..
This goes for everyone ..
I don’t want to go back to the days of comment deletion
The ceasefires were working well and prevented going back to the days of comment deletion.
If people cannot be respectful to each other, it is better that they don’t interact.
I agree – the pandering and toleration of nakedly obvious bias and barely concealed hostility towards muslims and Islam is something that I find utterly unpalatable about the BJP.
I would be wary of broad generalizations.
I dont think its …’generalizing’ to point out that the BJP ‘big tent’ does tolerate a degree of corrupt politicians, and some blatantly communal rhetoric.
Indians muslims are one rally away from being socially boycotted
Hate speech that calls for their murder and stereotypes them is normalized. Furthermore a lot of ‘being themsleves’ is more just being able to say nasty things about others out loud.
And a deep cm discomfort about viewpoints of the past thet dont align with one particular one
ok this would be good to expand and learn more on..
There’s no smoke without fire.. just saying…
Most of the people being targeted are nobodies not people involved in terrorist attacks or those who encourage viopence against others.
The jamiat and other communal organization’s are not affected by the violence amd segregation and when you consider the kind of fawning over Arab muslims amongst sections of the right in India, who at other times are responsible for radicalization, the above arguments don’t make the ones calling boycott or murder more justified, the opposite in fact.
There’s more to this than meets the eye. Personal anecdotes (I have seen / observed many where I live) apart, data too can either prove or disprove your hypothesis.
My hypothesis is that the majoroty of Indian Muslims are not terrorists, nor do they think about or talk about other religions as threats, you can find example of people in all communities who are nasty individuals whose piety is directly proportional to how much they spread hatred about others, I would like to see data that shows muslims in India have negative opinions about other religions because all data points towards them being no more conservative than the average Indian.
And if personal anecdotes is proot then I have only been told that I deserve to die because of my community or that my community is involved in drug trafficking and anti national by one particular that is neither muslim nor christian.
I think personal bigotry is a social evil that can unfortunately never be eradicated completely.
But the yardstick for judging governing administration should be hard data – metrics about socioeconomic access. legislative actions, or preservation of legal rights. And on those fronts, lets be honest, the BJP hasn’t really …effed with Indian secularism too much, if at all.
Cow lynching and cow vigilantism was not a thing before 2014 nor was bulldozer action or using clerical errors as a means to disenfranchise people.
Nor do I remember dog whistling being a part of many leaders campaign space
Calvin I want you to go back a couple decades ago. During that time my own family’s 4 different factories were burnt down by muslim immigrants from the north. My father had to pay for the insurance of the same muslim workers who burnt our home and factories down after the riots. There have been too many nasty incidents and too many riots for all of it to be forgotten at once. There are many such anecdotes in each family and these incidents were common in the 2000s and before that.
Even muslims have anecdotes of being killed and murdered.
The point is there are no muslims who are happy that your family’s factory was burnt down.
There are literally individuals who are happy that muslims wete killed in bhagalpur and call themselves cauliflower farmers to celebrate that. People still are very happy with the nellit massacre and we dont even need to get into what was said about the rapists of Bilkis Bano.
There are bad faith actors everywhere but the way I see it, only one influential sections bad faith actors are being justified.
Please go and read the communal violence bill introduced during the rule of UPA. It said that any act of communal violence would directly hold the Hindu population accountable. The bad actors radicalized my family against any reconciliation by holding us accountable for having our house burned down. When such repeated instances of bias are demonstrated I lose any sympathy for the opposition.
//Please go and read the communal violence bill introduced during the rule of UPA. It said that any act of communal violence would directly hold the Hindu population accountable. //
The bill was defeated and the wording even made Muslims and Christians in the states they are majority in default to be blamed in states they are a majority in. There are numerous laws in power that enabled all kinds of vigilantes to do whatever they want against those they don’t like today. Is that OK to you?
And why then do you get angry when actions of some people who share your religion are used by pakistanis and others to make blanket statements against those who you share your religion with. If you can get radicalised and hold negative attitudes towards Muslims why cant people who read about celebration of bhagalpur riots Nellie massacre and others also be radicalised why do you get angry at those who display similar bias as you?
Shouldn’t all the hateed and disguat be confined to the individuals only and not the group as a whole, especially when people from the group who were nasturtium and bigoted towards are, are not celebrated widely.
There’s an… emboldening of …public expressions of pre-existing prejudice towards muslims. A sub-section of mutual bigotry has always existed, the problem is that over the last few years, it feels like the tolerance for blatantly bigoted statements, which would previously have been muttered behind closed doors, are verbalized in public and media, in the name of ‘bold’ criticism.
I think some of the worst fears about Modi and the BJP have not materialized in the post-2014 BJP era. But pretending that ‘nothing is wrong’ with regards to communal rhetoric and the BJP, is the reverse image of what we see Calvin engage in, about MMS etc.
MMS is overcriticized and the achievements of him are undermined.
If anything it is opposite with his successor where people don’t even want to acknowledge any failures at all.
I dont belive MMS was perfect, obviously he was responsible for the corruption real or imagined under his watch.
The congress as a whole depended too much on doles rather than creating value and some of the actions like trying to pin 26/11 on RSS while it happened is atrocious as are bills like the communal violence that they knew would never pass and most likely dont for polarization.
But to act as if they were some disaster who did nothing when we dont even hear about issues in our country anymore in TV media and seeing the levels people go to defend today’s government is like night and day.
Indian Muslims have themselves to blame on some of that. Which community was it that was famous for asking to call off the police for 15 minutes? The reality is they have largely thrived under BJP’s law and order. You can’t really boycott a population the size of Brazil in India.
There are many people who are trying to get people to do exactly that. And the failure of these people will only lead to more extreme actions.
And measure for your welfare being seen as appresement, your males being seen as predators and being penalised under laws that empower vigilantes to do this exactly. Being killed for transporting meat on suspicion while cows die in govt owned gaushalas, as well as a lot of normalized bigotry is neither muslims fault nor something that can be ignored.
Many Indian communities are very similar culturally, and you can find bad behavior across the spectrum.
From what i have observed, there has been a tectonic shift within the hindus. There has been a rise of the confident and unapologetic hindu in India. This new hindu will no longer baby sit the muslim, waiting for them to join hands and move along with the times. He/she is ok if they choose not to and fall behind. This hindu also has no time to respond to this bogey of communalization when hard data shows absolutely no statistical evidence at all for the same. The politics is only reacting to this change in Indian society.
The people you describe are the ones who seem to always have others on their minds, to the point that their whole discourse seems to revolve around the backwardness, threat and penalization of muslims.
In fact if Muslims don’t seem to be involved they are not angry about anything at all.
I think you are overestimating people’s change in their religious notions. From what I can see, most people’s realignment in politics seems to be based on their economic incentives and social incentives that are often unrelated to religion, though. If religion was such a major factor, it doesn’t explain why the BJP did gain more seats in the national elections last time around, in addition to losing Ayodhya after they inaugurated the temple. A consistent theme has been welfare and reservation bound together with caste politics, with a religious coating on top. I remember the Karnataka election before, where the BJP tried excessively to appeal to the Vokkaliga and Lingayat communities until they pushed aside every other group. In the end, they didn’t get enough votes from the Lingayats or Vokkaligas and lost the other communities.
From what I see, most people are incentivized for different reasons. Merchants like the BJP because of their neoliberal policies. The agriculturalist lower caste are satiated using welfare, and the Brahmanical/literati are satisfied by being given important positions. A lot of this involves redirecting resources and affirmative action policies from the Muslim community to other groups.
I fully agree and although I didnt elaborate, I was making the same point…people have moved on with the times…they don’t have time to argue religion.. The opposition needs to provide a compelling alternative incentive model that is worth voting for..the voter is impatient and transactional..
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/rSmfxmfBrho
javed akhter has an opinion on this…
Hindufying Ghalib, which we welcome..
If Panini can be appropriated, then why not Ghalib 🙂
touché 🙂
I see no problem in them quoting Ghalib and then oppressing Muslims. It just means they were sucessfully conquered and they have imbibed the conquerors culture enough to not see that contradiction. Very much like talking shit against the British (in English nonetheless) but then continuing to use the British system, language, way of governance and even adopted British cultural and religious ideals.
India is essentially appropriating the Muslim-Mughal legacy and why not.
The Indian Muslims seem to be going along with that..
Indians have been appropriating/adopting foreign culture for at least the past 4000 years (maybe more). Nothing wrong with, except we get the OIT lunatics claiming everything originated in India
virtually all cultures are composite..
It is extremely disingenuous to oppress Muslims and then quote Ghalib at airports.
Clearly, Ghalib is being quoted to impress tourists. India still wants to project an image of a liberal and tolerant state when the truth is that Muslims are being treated as second class citizens.
Urdu poetry is a product an Indo-Islamic culture. It is the high culture of those who live in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, not in today’s India.
really; Indian can’t claim it?
Claiming a high culture while treating those who developed that high culture as second class citizens is disingenuous.
Under the Congress, India could claim Urdu. That’s because INC believes in “ganga jamuni tezheeb”. But if India is a nation for Hindus, then one cannot claim the Muslim cultural legacy.
You do understand that trying to erase these cultural elements would basically be the same as erasing the cultural legacy of Indian muslims that live in the country. Additionally, this kinda erasure is worse for Pakistan than it is for India since a lot of important figures and history originate on the other side of the border, since most Islamic empires that shaped Pakistan were centred around the regions of India (like Delhi or Agra). While the reverse has never really been true since the most Hindu sites and historical empires were centred around Patna, Devagiri, Madurai, Mathura, etc., all of which are located in India proper.
The BJP’s disregard for Urdu and the Mughal legacy is basically seen as a disregard for indian muslim. I mean, sure, India is like 15% muslims and not all of the Islamic legacies boil down to North Indian muslims. Like Vaikom Mohammud Bashir is well liked in Kerala and is talked about extensively, but Kerala is a part of India, and the government claims him. I wouldn’t say that it is wrong since the people of Kerala, like Vaikom Mohammud Bashir and they are a part of India.
Also, under your same logic, then European countries can’t claim the legacy of Rome or Greece since they are Christian, Iranians can’t claim the legacy of the Sassanid, the Achaemenid empires, etc since they are Shia Muslims persecuting Zoroastrians. Also, Pakistan would be able to claim the legacy of any pre-8th-century states since all of them were Hindu-Buddhist, as it is an Islamic country that discriminates against such groups.
Yeah but Kabir has a point. Unlike the Europeans who actually are Grecophile and Romanophile and are inspired by those civilizations, the Hindu Indians are just larping trying to claim Indo Islamic civilization. They clearly hate it, but they will brag about it to foriegners because that gets them brownie points. Your average Hindu nationalist will espouse bigoted views against Muslims while worshipping western ideals, so there is a dichotomy here.
The Indians are not claiming the legacy because they actually love Ghalib or the Taj Mahal. They are just claiming it to win some weird foreign aproval about how ‘tolerant’ they are.
The Hindus literally destroyed their language which would have made them understand Ghalib today, because it was deemed a ‘Muslim’ language. Now they don’t understand Ghalib, but is their a rekindling of their yearning to understand it? No. Is anyone learning Urdu and promoting it? No. Is there any wide interest in it? No. The entire thing is a larp to win foreign approval.
Lol like the Pakistanis larping to claim IVC and Panini no less with the brainless assertion that he may have been a Muslim.
Islamic Invasions were a brutal reality. Ultimately the great Hindu boa has even regurgitated that violent ideology even if not in entirety. You guys clearly aren’t able to come to terms with it.
Pakistanis are direct continous descendants of IVC people so their claim is somewhat more credible. IndianHindus dont check that box when it comes to Indo Islamic civ
oh yes, that’s why Pakistanis are named after Uzbeks Afghans and Arabs instead of carrying IVC heritage names.
Pakistanis name themselves after Islamic prophets and Islamic figures (they are Muslims), and great warriors/kings (Greek/Persianate). There are no IVC heritage names, since IVC script is not yet deciphered, and in any case it is 4000 years ago.
The underlying bigotry in this comment is……quite something.
Its a caricaturisation of Hindus as somehow a monolithic ‘quom’ seeking foreign approval. Its a verbal version of the racist pajeet saar meme. If a commenter had done something similar about muslims as a monolith, he’d probably be banned.
The fact that SQ is allowed to spout his incell-y bigoted views on women, nakedly bigoted views on Hindus, is a testament to the high levels of tolerance on BP. Completely expected of course from Dharmic Tolerance. 🙂
I’ve entirely stopped replying to him because all his views could be said by a character from the 1800s and it wouldn’t even make a difference. I hope you come to the same conclusion soon.
When you cannot argue, just claim “its bigoted” and you dont have to present any argument.
Generalizations are made left right and center here. They are useful in understanding large groups of people and their motivations. Its obviously a given that not everyone will fit that frame, thats why its called a “generalization”.
When you have no argument to present, perhaps its better to keep quiet.
Meaningless word salad in defense of one’s bigotry….doesn’t really change anything.
None of the things that you said are even particularly true here. Firstly, most Indians (and quite frankly most of the world) read extensively in this day and age, with things like reels, TikTok, or whatever social media they use daily. Out of the remaining few who ever read tend to fall into two categories: anglophiles and traditionalists. The Anglophiles mostly look at the Western canon and occasionally some other pieces in English, while the traditionalists are more interested in pre-12th-century history and mainly look at old Sanskritic texts like the Mahabharata or Ramayana, with maybe (a big maybe here) some vernacular religious or poetic texts in languages like Tamil, Bengali, etc.
Urdu literature doesn’t even come up extensively, and the only people I have seen talking about writers like Ghalib or Amir Khosrow are usually well-educated liberals with progressive values living in the cities, which often include muslims and Hindus that tend to have more open friend groups. This group is literally a minority, which tends to overlap with the Anglophile people. Mind you, the main reason why Urdu isn’t popular (beyond the religious connotations) stems from the fact that people these days don’t understand the language extensively or the Nastaliq script for that matter. Most indians in the North (since Southerners don’t care for Urdu or Hindi, for that matter) speak a hybrid language that often mixes English, Hindi, and vernacular languages like Mathili. Additionally, English is basically becoming the dominant literature in India to the extent of overshadowing Hindi literature, much less Urdu.
Furthermore, most of the Islamic aren’t even considered to be Indian architecture by conservatives; I have literally heard them say that the Meenakshi temple in Tamil Nadu is “true” indian architecture, while the Taj Mahal isn’t. The BJP did remove the Taj Mahal from the tourist guide one time as well. Quite frankly, no Westerner, when asked about Indian anything, really thinks of the Islamic side since they mostly associate India with Hinduism and Indian architecture with Indian temples. The Taj Mahal was mostly an exception rather than the rule. Even the Muslim Social Drama, a genre centred around Muslims and their experiences, has declined in recent times.
I have seen more Indians trying to LARP as Americans or well-educated modern people rather than as anything Islamic. I can literally understand Hindi movies much better these days since they stopped using Persian words and gravitate more towards Sanskrit words. The Islamic empires are kinda reviled in the same breath as the British colonial period, while the pre-Islamic is glorified. Look at all the major historical films these past few years: Bahubali, a fantasy film set in a vaguely pre-Islamic kingdom; Chaava, a film about the Maratha emperor killed by the Mughals, and the recent collection of Ramayana films. Does any of this look like their LARPing as Indo-Islamic entities? Mind you, the closest one was Heeramandi, which was considered a failure by many. The Islamic part of Indo-Islamic is more or less vanishing out of the public consciousness, alongside, sadly, the Indian Muslim presence in the social landscape as they are gradually marginalized out. The South, ironically enough, has more Islamic representation these days, and even then that mostly through a very western, modernized lens rather than the Indo-Islamic tradition.
I don’t really think they did anything of that sort. For one, most airports are significantly owned by private companies, and they are operated by private individuals rather than public government officials. The quote was probably purely decorative and was probably put there by low- to mid level employ since Ghalib came from the nearby region.
The right has literally gone out of its way to distance itself completely from the Indo-Islamic elements of the country, including outright removing references to the Mughal Empire or avoiding the use of Urdu in public spaces. The only people who try to meaningfully even try to engage with these elements are usually the left leaning induviduals. The right avoids having to ever engage with the Islamic elements in history, especially if there was ever a positive memory, and they only talk about it because they are forced to. The marginalization and outright removal of the Islamic elements are a bigger issue here rather than any non-existent co-opting by the right.
Skyroot has made India the 3rd country in the world with a private company capable of space flight with its launch in the last couple days.
Thanks for the addendum
I enjoyed reading this piece. Yes, Modi with three terms has consistently delivered with all the schemes. Now a majority of the population has access to basic necessities, something that critics overlook in their fond nostalgia of the Congress days.
The hard reality is that at the end of the day, words during an election do not suffice. Whatever else may be true, but the Overton window has conclusively shifted be it in terms of matching the common man’s aspiration or the rise of nationalism.
This is not to say that the third term is without fault. Murmurings about corruption within the system are growing. Modi’s personal incorruptiblilty has not percolated downstream despite his efforts. The babus and politicians in the system have also figured out ways of circumventing it. The ecosystem that was replaced in many ways seems to have become a mirror image of the previous one. Something to guard against. A lot of long term Modi supporters are also disillusioned with certain developments.
National highways are fabulous, but the city infrastructure in general is sorely lacking unless its a Fadnavis at the helm.
Institutional corruption is a malaise, an entitlement that eats away at any progress that is made. It has gotten so ingrained since IG’S time that even a Modi hasn’t been able to conclusively shake it off.
The same person who made a fund in the name of his post and asked for donation from even govt employees and then removed it from scrutiny through RTI is hardly incorruptible.
This whole notion thst someone at the top is all powerful and personally incorruptible but can’t control those who are under him makes them look no different than Manmohan Singh ezcept Manmohan never collected money in the name of his post
Calvin these are really top-notch comments; we love it when facts are skewering our contentions.
Don’t be sure about MMS. Have heard stories.
Of course rumours are always going to be there but in one case there is clear examples of such behavior and in others there are only rumours.
Anyways, let’s say MMS did do simular behaviour would this along with other things that are happening under his watch mean he should be allowed to be PM.
I know enough at a personal level about Manmohan Singh (MMS) to say he was a well meaning, cheap, coward of a bureaucrat. He collected even small plaques and awards and love putting them in his CV to the point where the habit became utterly ridiculous. He was a such a coward, he was shivering when taking the economic reforms agenda along with other co-authors to Narasimha Rao. During the meeting, Rao asked him whether this list was comprehensive. The bugger couldn’t even answer properly. So the other authors stepped in and said No, there were other points that MMS made us remove because he was too scared. Narasimha Rao berated MMS and said if I am taking a risk, might as well do all of it at one go. Comparing a bureaucrat like MMS to Modi who is a titan in the Indian political landscape, is utterly ludicrous.
That’s pretty much the reason he was made PM. He could be helicoptered by the members of NAC, effectively running a shadow govt within the country exempt from all criticism. We can go to the several horrible bills released by MMS govt such as the communal violence bill, the retrospective taxation, etc. We don’t need to speculate on that govt at all to critique it, instead we can just point to the avg inflation figures as to why people revolted against it. The oil prices used to really sting during those times. Any govt that allows 10%+ inflation a couple years before elections is headed into the trash.
All great points.
Excellent comment.
Lol looks like the tradition of seeking awards is well and alive.
Being a good politician is not the same as being a good leader. Since it seems cheap praise is a measure of greatness.
Obama own praise and calling Manmohan Singh a guru as well as helping out India by calling out Pakistan as a hotbed of terror, and helping put Pakistan in the FATF is all that is needed to deal with your insults towards MMS character. At least MMS could answer people like yourself who insulted his character face to face without the use of a teleprompter and scripted interviews, he is much braver than any supposed titans in that regard
Finally being unsure and skeptical about your plans is the mark of a scholar, especially when the lives of billions of people are at stake with your decisions. Narasimha Rao could only be as sure because a scholar like Manmohan had devised the plans and could make up for lack of confidence for the both of them.
Unfortunately the people of India couldn’t see what a great scholar, intellectual, epitome of dignity and courage, this guru of Obama actually was…..44 seats..
Unfortunately many people fell for the sold out media, as MMS said history will be kinder to him than the Indian media .
>National highways are fabulous, but the city infrastructure in general is sorely lacking unless its a Fadnavis at the helm.
From a distance, progress feels….stop-start and requiring more iterations. And the iterations aren’t …iterating nearly fast enough.
City governance in India has a power and budget distribution problem. Cities are underfunded and poorly administered, because the political system isn’t currently allowing anything better than sub-optimal resource allocation….
True that
//City governance in India has a power and budget distribution problem. Cities are underfunded and poorly administered, because the political system isn’t currently allowing anything better than sub-optimal resource allocation….//
I don’t think it is just poor allocation and budget distribution.
I was just reading about Karnataka Yettinahole project and it’s supposed role in exacerbating floods and landslides in the projects areas as well as decreasing water availability for downstream areas in dakshin kannada, all for what scientists from the IISC, say will only be able to provide maybr 15 tmcft rather than 25 tmcft expected. It really brings how like many people, even civil engineer might be unaware of the ecology and topology of the areas they live in
A lot of floods as well as heating we see in many cities regularly maybe happening not only due to lesser allocation and unplanned development but a lacking knowledge of the ecology and topology by the very people planning our cities.
Yes agree. To top that the corruption not just at the govt levels. Ordinary people seemingly turn a blind eye to rules that should be strongly enforced. We are reactive never proactive.
This selective application of rules has destroyed us as a country.
Unplanned development, lack of focus on ecology etc – these are all symptomatic of underfunding and unprofessional management. Dial back in history to the early 20th century and you will see plenty of instances of all of these issues in the US, UK etc.
Its…growing pains in a way.
This is a symptom of a specific problem that India suffers from all the time. I remember reading a study by an American university a long time ago, where they compared the Beureaucratic size and structure at all three levels: Federal, local, and State level between India, China, and the US. The US and China had an inverse “U” shaped curve, where the majority of the government workers are actually concentrated at the municipal level.
India, on the other hand, had it in the opposite direction, with an understaffed local bureaucracy and a very large federal government. The result would be the fact that the Federal government makes a lot of policies that can be effective, but the understaffing at the local level results in poor enforcement of those policies all the time. The main cause of the understaffing at the local level mostly stems from the poorer pay being given at those positions. Another major issue of the understaffing would be the lack of important people in crucial regulatory and oversight positions, i.e., judges or managers, etc. This results in a slowdown in decision-making and creates openings for corruption.
You can see this pattern in the above situation, where the federal and state governments made a project to be implemented, but understaffing and other issues clearly led to a lot of oversight or lack of expertise. Furthermore, it turns out the caste-reserved positions in the government aren’t filled due to an insufficient number of people passing the examination or interviews. You have entire postings for judges that don’t get filled since not enough qualified people were found, or the ones that did exist wanted to work in a well-paid federal position rather than an underpaid rural posting. Also, it kinda means that the people who take local postings are absolutely going to be corrupt due to their lack of pay. Of course, the solution would be to increase the wages, but that requires additional cash on hand, which isn’t always the case, or it requires increased taxation policies that political unfavorable to the masses.
There is a discussion to be had about whether this structure is essentially a product of the resource extraction policies from the time period of the Raj. Mind you, this doesn’t even include the intersection all of this has with the difficulty in industrializing the country.
Tbh most of the posting from reserved people being unfilled is a result of casteism since they suddenly find suitable candidate when reservation is removed.
But yeah, we do need more local level government servants and a decrease in government servants at a higher levels. Will do wonders for accountability
anand rangarajan, bit dated but….
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/dFxDpiKpg2w
it could even be the confidence boost..
The things you credit for having made Indis great are:
1) Better spending in transport infrastructure- which is a legitimate achievement even if a lot of it is driven by the fact that a lot of member of many political parties are themselves contractors and there are murmur of large cuts being taken, but still a legitimate achievement.
2) UPI- the basis of which was devised ubder the congress and would have happened on its own like with Aadhar but needing something like demonetization.
3) Aadhar-Built during the congress, but expanded further in scope than it was needed to.
4) The Jan dhan, building of toilets and tap water- the first was built on the network of public sector and cooperative banks that were expanded by previous governments. The latter two where there are doubts as to whether water is coming out of the taps and whether the disposal of waste in case of toilets is planned at all.
5) Defense exports: A solid achievement no doubt about it.
6) Foreign policy: Was always good even before 2014, some of the personalization has done more to take advantage of this already decent policy that culminated in pakistan being blacklisted by the FATF.
A lot of credit, aside from certain things are due to continuity of previous policy that is part and parcel of the common sense of Indian governance due to many structural realities of a country like India. The only new thing is the tendency towards monetization like with, defense exports, or using logistical investment as a way to make money on better freights and above all a bigger penchant for advertising their work which is why many things that have been done by governments are visible now.
very good comment thank you for fleshing it out
>the first was built on the network of public sector and cooperative banks that were expanded by previous governments.
Just like the transport infra improvements – I really think its a strong argument to make, that the current administration has consistently improved on scale and speed of delivery and execution – Not saying its unimpeachably perfect – definitely non-trivial issues of quality, corruption etc – but still a non-trivial jump in execution. No amount of cherry-picking and spotlighting flaws can wish or wash that fact away. No?
I don’t thing credit should not be given for better execution and speed of delivery, but credit should also be shared amongst everyone.
Aadhar, the proliferation of telecom, electricity infrastructure and network of cooperative banks all have helped in bettering this execution thst the current govt has added its own flairs to, like greater focus on monetization as seen in defense and even increased freight revenues.
The credit that is wholly given to one party should be shared amongst all the govts that came before as this has and always will be a team effort from everyone involved
As in the world of VCs and Startups or maybe more so in case of diverse and large country like India, “Ideas are cheap, it is execution at scale that matters”.
Not to mention that he was managed to not get baited and walk in to traps like Punjab, reservation (barely) and north east.
A country is not a company, confusing those two is one of the cardinal mistakes made by many today.
If a business fails, only the founder suffers if a country fails everyone does which is why a lot of progress is incremental and built upon the efforts of those before them.
“A country is not a company, confusing those two is one of the cardinal mistakes made by many today.”
Exactly it makes my point even stronger. Execution by ramping and scaling on good ideas is even more critical in a noisy diverse democracy like ours. If Ideas were everything, then we wouldn’t have 3rd world countries who presumably are not able to execute on the numerous development reports from world bank, imf or NGOPlex.
more deflection. Who is saying that a country is a company? But the point is that execution and delivery matters, and counts for a lot. A lot more than “origin of the idea”. But your political bias dictates that you have to argue against this basic concept.
Bhumiputra was making a direct connection with startup.
Even this execution you point out was built on infrastructure and initiatives that were taken on under the previous government.
Wete there no aadhar, no large scale telecom infrastructure, no banking facilities in many rural areas, the development of technology that allowed things to be done at scale would have been more difficult. I dont think that the congress would be worse off than the bjp in implementing things like Jan dhan yojana or giving temporary free gas connection.
>I dont think that the congress would be worse off than the bjp in implementing things like Jan dhan yojana or giving temporary free gas connection.
Sorry but the Congress administrations have a historical track record of not prioritizing delivery of services.
Its ok, I understand you are not going to be able to explicitly acknowledge it. The best you can do is say something grudging like “I don’t think credit should not be given”. That statement itself speaks a lot louder than you think it does.
The UPA was directly responsible for holding back Indian telecom network expansion. Their retrospective taxation ruling lead to Vodaphone almost exiting the Indian market.
Thanks to Chidambaram, corrupt fellow.
Special thanks to Pranav Mukharjee. Not forgiving or forgetting that guy.
Not everything the UPA did was good obviously but the notion thst it did nothing is erroneous.
Even in this case, it is only slump in invetments and consumption post covin that led to retrospective tax being cancelled.
If your argument was that UPA wasn’t completely horrible, I’d agree with you. But you are arguing that MMS’ term was better than Modi’s term. Which is just wrong. Modi has delivered better economic results, better infra, better electricity and water, better space policy, better nuclear policy, etc. The list goes on and on. But what makes Modi truly better is that inflation has been really low in historic comparison due to the inflation targeting regime. So much so that there has been barely any effect on the avg Indian consumer even during a global crisis like the Iran war. There’s obviously still a long way to go but lets be real about it the Congress was a lot more draconian and economically worse than Modi.
I remember during the SS+Cong+NCP govt how metro construction started to go at a slower pace, how random actors and public intellectuals were arrested for writing poems on Sharad Pawar. They even threatened journalists and even news channels. So I have little to no sympathy for the other side having seen their policy platform.
+1
Under the UPA, the Congress allowed weaponization of ‘environmental’ BS and stalled the Mumbai Metro – and we all know that the motivations behind that was not to save the ‘trees of Aarey milk colony’ but to maximize corruption $$.
This is but one example of how under the UPA, progress, infrastructure development nakedly took a back seat to grift. This is where the BJP, even when caught with quality issues, or corruption issues, is perceived to be better – with reason – at least they are delivering while corrupt.
This isn’t to say that BJP flavored screw-ups and corruption are acceptable – they are NOT. And this is why folks like me are frustrated with the congress and other non-BJP parties. A viable BJP-like alternative that was competing with the BJP on development and service delivery, preferably without the inflammatory communal nonsense, is desperately needed for India. But RaGa and his minions instead, choose to deploy utter trash rhetoric like caste redistribution, “states rights” poison pills etc etc.
Please read the original post.
My argument was that a lot of things that are credited solely to this govt were brainchild of the former and for some like aadhar much of the groundwork was done by them in other supposed success the Jan dhan yojana, the expansion of banking services under not just UPA but many more also deserve credit
My whole point was thst India success should be credited to the Indian political common sense as a whole not to just one party.
What is happening in many instances is that failures of one party are not even discussed while failure of the others are the only thing discussed.
One reason why congress was unable to control inflation is higher oil priced that were simply not there during much of the present NDA govts term.
I actually want more discussion of the current administration. But actual failures, not frothy invented ones like “democracy khatre mein hai”.
Democracy is not just elections, it is also accountability, institutional freedom and space to dissent.
Reducing the space through a psyop, using clerical process to exclude 22 crore voters, weaponizing the state to collect huge sums of money, and then use this money to break up parties to push your agenda are all legitimate threats to the practice of democracy. If any other party had done this and let’s be honest they havr you would not brush these things off.
Have you never called out Mamata for weaponizing public utilities for garnering support, or preventing people from voting. What about when congress lathi charged protectors during Sheila Dikshit tenure? Would you not consider that an attack on democracy? If yes then why are similar things done though other means( or same in some cases) not threats.
BTW do you think democracy is important for Indias growth in the first place?
“dissent” is not an excuse for engineered anarchy.
You did not answer my question to the end.
And the only people who call protest and dissent engineered anarchy are those who dissent is directed towards and their sellouts in the media.
Most protests in India have largely been peaceful.
See this attempt to give credit when its not due and trying to symmetricize everything when clearly its asymmetrical is the issue.
Why are you unable to give credit to this govt where its due? Nobody wants to hide the excesses, but denying credit comes across as very petty.
>Why are you unable to give credit to this govt where its due?
Its an ego thing, you can’t expect your debate opponent to rub his own nose in it. When you are fighting with a broken sword, you cannot extol the virtues of the one you’re getting stabbed with!
I can give credit quite easily, don’t make assumptions for no reason.
As far why you guys can’t acknowledge UPAs role in many of this govts success or seem to be more angry with MMS despite him having been punished for his failures, and some of his failures being even more ever present now it is something you should reflect on.
I really do not care if the cat that ‘catches mice’ is UPA, BJP or some other party entirely. In fact, I would much rather prefer a development focused party that prioritized Indian pluralism and secularism a lot more than the BJP is doing.
I am happy to credit Congress if it does things right. I view MMS as a well-intentioned technocrat who was limited in his efficacy due to the structural role he had in the Congress administration.
As far as ‘assumptions’ are concerned, we all interpret and extrapolate based on the data we get – until now, I had seen mostly partisan takes from you, and mostly one note bitterness and cynicism about the current administration…
I gave credit to certain things I feel deserve credit.
What do you feel I should give credit for? Better execution? I genuinely think that we would see better execution even if the congress was in power, because a large part of it was due to technology and institutional capacity coming together.
You want more things I feel.BJP alone deserves credit for:
1) Accepting things like aadhar and gst even if they opposed it during opposition.
2) Monetizing many govt services for better use like railways and defense exports.
3) Improving our port capacity, and making us self sufficient in ammunition production.
4) Not letting ideology dictate policy, as seen in overtures to Pakistan till Pakistan closed the doors.
5) Trying their best to keep a wide circle of friends in a heavily polarizer world.
6) Connecting all grids into a single national grid, though no doubt having a majority of state govt helped in this where congress failed.
7)The recent slews of FTAs that will at least help some Indian businessmen, merchants, craftsmen and farmers.
8) Development of Brahmos and our own multi artillery defense system.
9) Formalizing our border enclaves with Bangladesh as much as possible.
10) Taking advantage of the reduction of cost in renewable energy to make our grid 55% dependent on renewable energy.
11) Supporting investment in hydrogen based fuel cells.
12) Increasing the number of airports, though they could have done viability studies for many of them.
13) Efforts to bring back indian cultural artifacts like the Leiden plates.
14) Construction of tap and toilet facilities even if I do believe that many of them might lack water supply, and are not connected to sewage pipelines at least this can be built upon.
15) Increase in ethanol blending even if they should have kept options and told car manufacturers before hand to only aet up production for ethanol compliant models in the future.
16) Increase in mobile phone assembly facilities.
17) Increase in semiconductor manufacturing facilities.
18) I guess enabling Ambani to provide cheap data to almost all parts of India
19) Better export for Indian toys.
20) Vande Bharat
21) Bullet trains though they should have started with Hyderabad to bangalore and Hyderabad to mumbai/ pune to begin with.
22) Increase in number of trees,even if I wish they would value natural forest as much.
23) Increasing the number of electricity available to 22 hrs from 12 he’s through national grid, renewable energy capacity generation and reduction of losses.
24) exporting tigers to other countries Nd bring cheetahs back. Wish they would send lions out of gir though.
ok, this is commendable. I’ll accept I am surprised by this.
Why you want lions ‘sent out of gir’ though?
//Why you want lions ‘sent out of gir’ though?//
One epidemic can wipe out, the entire population or worse make it genetically unviable, there are dogs near Gir and lions have died under canine distemper virus before.
Kuno was supposed to be a second home for lions, but the gujarat govt does not want to lose its prized cat.
For the sake of the species, it needs to be present in multiple locations. I can only hope good sense prevails on the gujarat government before disaster strikes.
https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/Order-on-free-grain-to-poor-cant-be-executed-says-Manmohan-Singh/article15906394.ece
The entire point everyone is making here is that MMS govt didn’t have the guts to even commit to policies which involved minimal downside and a large upside for the incumbent govt. They couldn’t even distribute the grain they were buying from farmers at high prices.
Reading that article makes it all the more confusing what is issue with MMS, here he is basically saying no to what has come to be known as freebie politics, something that many from the middle class dislike.
If anything, this particular incident shows much more strength and moral clarity and future sight than many other politicians in India, it also goes against notions that MMS was under the control of the National Advisory council, since at least some of the individuals on that wanted to give free food to everybody.
This kind of stuff is the reason MMS will be remembered much more kindly by history.
Bro is really out here defending the indefensible. There are no political parties out there which are against the free food grain policy provided by the Modi govt. You won’t find a policy that creates a safety net for most of India’s population better than free food grains. There are good reasons why many states are even starting up govt kitchens to feed the poor, because there are actually no down sides for doing it. It targets the worst off in society and it makes sure nobody regardless of income level goes hungry. There are literally no downsides for this policy considering you were already buying the grain at MSP.
It costs a bomb to give free food, instead of just subsidized food, and no political party is against freebies either, it does not make it right.
Having food available for free during a pandemic and having free food for however long you can manage to win elections are two different things.
I know it is difficult to admit that MMS had a point, that the cost of this has to be borne by someone somewhere and is unsustainable but if we dont take economists seriously who do we?
The govt already buys the food grain at subsidized rates. It literally rots away in silos if they don’t give it away. Just admit to the fact that you’re wrong on this and move on. There is not a single defensible argument regarding not providing free food grain to the poor in the current circumstances. Hell even after providing it for free a lot of the grain still goes unused.
Don’t impute motives to Calvin; with respect 0M, you get a little hot headed during discussions ..
Providing free anything, burns a massive hole in the exchequer and reduces the budget for things like education, infra development, and research and health. By the way, MSP is not a subsidized rate, quite the opposite in fact.
There are cases where it is a moral responsibility to provide free food, like to the old, infirm, children, mentally unstable and during natutral calamities, droughts and floods, as well as economic downturns, but when an economy is doing well and people can get jobs, even manual labour, there is no reason to not charge a modest amount. The fact that 80 crore need free food in the worlds 4th largest economy is puzzling in the first place.
>Not everything the UPA did was good obviously but the notion thst it did nothing is erroneous.
The framing itself is disingenous. Why is any and all criticism of UPA and MMS, framed as “you are accusing they did ‘nothing'”?
And this sort of answer is ….kinda weasel-word-ery and an attempt to avoid unflattering comparisons made on delivery, execution improvements that the BJP administration has undeniably demonstrated. In other words, partisan bias.
Which is OK. Partisan political one-eyed arguments are not criminal. But let’s call a spade a spade.
Did I deny that some policies of the UPA wete not good. I did not try to justify retrospective tax, and even if I disagree with environmental objections being BS as you said, I am not going to spend time arguing that point given the behavior of karnataka and telangan congress it clearly seems that the congress agrees with you as well.
Please tell me where I have made statements that are openly partisan like manmohan singh should not be held responsible for the failures of his ministers like some people here have or denied that bjp is better at execution, only adding a caveat that much of this betterment is a result of efforts of many before them and there are issues flagged by even the CAG in initiatives like universal sanitation and water supply.
+1
You are a very reasoned and balanced commentator .. thank you Calvin
Please stop defending the indefensible. By attacking the excesses of the BJP while simultaneously brushing off the obvious Congress ones takes away your credibility.
What excesses of the congress am I defending?
Please tell me where I defended retrospective tax or said that manmohan should not be held responsible for any alleged or real corruption under his watch? Or argued against attempts to paint him as a puppet that others have made or argued that inflation was not well handled or that congress did not use environmental issues to stall projects( something that their telangana and karnataka state units are not following at all)
If you think that my original post is depending the UPA then please read it again, and point me where have I defended them?
You are quick to point and elaborate upon the flaws of the BJP (tightfully so), but you fawned over MMS. Putting him on a pedestal is literally defending the indefensible. He presided over the worst corruption / incidents be it telecom, the horrific 26/11 attacks, the attempt to paint all Hindus as perpetrators unless proven otherwise in the communal violence bill, retrospective tax. Why don’t you expand on these huge failings like what you did with the BJP’s? Pithy one liners don’t do such stuff justice.
Besides, as I had mentioned. If he was that powerful and wonderful, why did Aadhar hit such roadblocks during his two terms tenure?
//Besides, as I had mentioned. If he was that powerful and wonderful, why did Aadhar hit such roadblocks during his two terms tenure?//
Becoz the same people who now use it everywhere opposed it tooth and nail
//He presided over the worst corruption / incidents be it telecom, the horrific 26/11 attacks, the attempt to paint all Hindus as perpetrators unless proven otherwise in the communal violence bill, retrospective tax. //
How many of these corruption incidents have resulted in convictions? 2g scam was shown to be nonexistent in court and we have a worse iteration of these allegations in the form of electoral bonds.
Manmohan Singh lost his govt and reputation over the corruption of his colleagues, another party insults corrupt people one day and accept them the next, uses its apparatus to dole out favour and extract money and is literally enriching itself over control of the levers of governance with no pushback. If MMS has already been punished why should I dwell on it?
Manmohan Singh was not responsible for the 26/11 attacks, his party members should not have tried to pin it on the RSS but if the action of Digvijat Singh are remembered, the resignation following the intelligence failures as well as exposing pakistan internationally, and putting him in the FATF should also. He did not need to send a global delegation on tax payers money only to have no nation agree with our primary point of view for instance. Besides the initial intelligence failures( which if you are being honest have not stopper), MMS had cornered Pakistan much more then than now.
And yes the communal violence bill is wrong, it is good that it got defeated even if the way the wording was done, it could even be used against christians and muslims in states they are majority in as well but anyways good it got defeated, unlike this bill there are many other laws that streptype Muslim majoroty areas as disturbed forcing them to ghettoize, that allow vigilante action against people for a whole host of reasons, some of these bills like rajasthan recently passed anti conversion law, grant immunity during actions taken to prevent religious converision( and given that despite christians being a poor underclass in places like rajasthan, Gujarat, mp, chhatisgarh, the lack of convictions under this law in all the above states, make such sections even more concerning.)
MMS also presided over some of the highest growth years in India, with actual increase in jobs, insulated india from the worst of 2008 financial and oil crisis the best he could and above all, took responsibility for his actions and took on his critics head on. If my response to Archer is what is causing this misconception that I am some sort of bhakt of his then let me clarify, my main irritation was calling him weak in favor of a person who can’t even answer take on criticism or responsibility under whom the worst of MMS has already been surpassed, not out of any love but irritation at a bad comparison.
MMS is being proven right each day that history will kinder to him.
[…] thread beneath it, the liveliest we have had in a while since the discussion on Gender, promptly asked a harder question: is Modi good for the Muslims? It is a fair question and it deserves to be held […]
It is good observation India’s understated performance on many fronts ie political stability and economic growth. So far so good. However at the microlevel, urban life is poorly served with bad roads, amount of rubbish in lot of places. Unless the quality of urban life- where the majority of people are heading- i would not be too impressed with statistics
Welcome (after a while); yes traffic and hygiene (and pollution) important aspects to work on in the Urban areas.
Chennai has far and away the best air of the major 4 metros.
Have you been to Hyderabad yet? My BIL, also a Bombay kid, now US expat, visited a couple of times recently for work, and came back raving.
I went to Hyderabad two years but went to KSV.
https://www.brownpundits.com/2024/09/25/kanha-shanti-vanam/
Daaji is visiting Asia this week.
I may go to Bangalore on the Sindhi-Sikh conference.
I do love the South; air quality is fantastic all over the South.