On the CJP, the NEET leak, and the weapon that failed to detonate
1. How much of the patriotic framing was strategy and how much was simply the sincere register of the people who happened to be there?
2. Does the Shaheen Bagh comparison hold? The counter-case is that 2020 and 2026 are not comparable because the CAA was a policy the government wanted and the NEET leak was an embarrassment it did not.
3. Can a satirical formation convert?
Sorting out the Cockroaches?
Every major Indian protest movement of the last twelve years has faced the same attempted execution. Not by baton, though the batons come, and came again on 20 July. The execution is attempted when the state tries to answer the question who are these people? before the movement can answer it. Shaheen Bagh was minorities. JNU was tukde-tukde. The farmers held out longest and won their repeal, and were still, in the telling, Khalistanis with tractors.
It is a sorting mechanism. Once a crowd has been sorted out of the nation, its demands become negotiable in the way that a hostile faction’s demands are negotiable, which is to say not at all.
The Cockroach Janta Party won in large part because Abhijeet Dipke understood this and moved first.
The insult
The origin is not the NEET leak. It is 15 May, when the Chief Justice of India, Surya Kant, sitting in open court on a contempt matter concerning senior advocate designations, described young people who do not get employment and have no place in a profession as cockroaches, as parasites of society.
Dipke, thirty years old, a political communications graduate of Boston University who had previously worked with the Aam Aadmi Party, made a joke about it online. Within a day he had a name, a website, and a logo. By late May the Instagram account had passed nineteen million followers, more than double the BJP’s and comfortably ahead of the Congress.
The inversion
An insult delivered from the highest bench in the country was picked up and worn. The state was thereby denied the first move. It could not tell the country who these people were, because they had already told the country themselves, in the state’s own words, with the state’s own contempt attached. The slogan the outfit chose, Voice of the Lazy and Unemployed, meant that one could not smear a movement that had pre-smeared itself and turned the smear into merchandise.
Dipke is not an accidental figure. He is a communications strategist by trade with an anti-corruption movement on his CV. From Wikipedia:
Dipke lived in Boston, Massachusetts, while studying at Boston University. He returned to India in June 2026 to participate in the CJP’s demonstrations. Following the movement’s rapid growth, his parents publicly expressed concern about the personal risks associated with his political activism.
Incidentally his AAP lineage matters as well, because 2012 is the last time this particular manoeuvre was executed successfully in Delhi. It is vaguely reminiscent of Khomeini flying back from Paris; a returnee from a foreign land transforming their homeland.
The inoculation
Look at what was actually chanted, sung, and printed. At Jantar Mantar on Saturday: the national anthem on loudspeakers, Jai Hind, Vande Mataram, tricolours, sweets. A protester named Tluanga Ralte walking the site with a copy of the Constitution in his hands, telling reporters this was a win for the Constitution.
The CJP’s own mobilisation poster, distributed with a standard operating procedure and a memorandum template, closes on two slogans set deliberately side by side: Inquilab Zindabad, Bharat Mata Ki Jai.
The first is the register of the anti-colonial left. The second is the register the Sangh has spent forty years trying to own outright. It is the systematic occupation of the ground from which the counterattack would otherwise be launched. To call this crowd anti-national, you had to call the anthem anti-national.
This has been tried before
Shaheen Bagh did all of this. The tricolours were everywhere. The Preamble was read aloud nightly. The Constitution was the organising symbol of the entire sit-in, exactly as it was at Jantar Mantar this week. And the sorting worked anyway. In February 2020 Ravi Shankar Prasad stood at a press conference and said, in terms, that people trying to fragment India were getting cover at Shaheen Bagh, where the tricolours were being waved. The flag was in the protesters’ hands and the minister named the flag and reached past it. Nobody in the ecosystem blinked.
So flag-occupation is not sufficient. It is not even close to sufficient.
Shaheen Bagh could be reached past because the crowd was already legible as Muslim, and the frame did not need to be argued, only gestured at. The NEET aspirant is not legible as anything. He is Hindu, he is middle class, he is upwardly mobile by intention if not yet by outcome, he is very often from a household that voted BJP twice, and his single complaint is that the ladder he was told to climb has been sold to somebody else. A senior party functionary put it to Outlook with unusual candour: these families are our own voters, aspirational young people who believe in the system, and if they begin to lose faith it has consequences.
Dipke’s inoculation, in other words, was necessary but was administered to a body that already had partial immunity.
The weapon that failed to detonate
The frame was fired, and this is the part being widely missed because it happened in June and everyone is writing about July.
On 23 June, Pradhan went on the record calling the CJP a B team of disruptive elements, and told India Today that tukde-tukde forces were at Jantar Mantar.
It did nothing. The sit-in had begun on 20 June and it did not break. Sonam Wangchuk started his hunger strike five days later. Kejriwal turned up on 16 July. The crowd on 20 July was north of thirty thousand.
Now read the resignation letter of 25 July, in which Pradhan says he is going so that the anger of students is not exploited by anti-national forces, and does not say who they are. A BJP insider ran the same line to the Tribune, arguing that the government retreated before anti-national forces could infiltrate the agitation, so that, in this telling, democracy might advance.
Between 23 June and 25 July the same category degrades from an accusation with a referent to a hypothetical with none. That is what a weapon looks like after it has been fired and failed to detonate: still being waved, now aimed at nobody, doing face-saving work rather than sorting work. The internet shutdown around Jantar Mantar for most of last week is the same fact in negative. When you cannot define a crowd, you switch off its ability to define itself. That did not work either.
What was actually conceded
Pradhan is a real scalp. He is fifty-seven, the son of a veteran BJP leader, a minister continuously since 2014, steward of the National Education Policy, reportedly part of Amit Shah’s core group, and at one time floated for party president. He is only the second minister to resign over a scandal since 2014, after M.J. Akbar in 2018.
But look at what the CJP actually put on the table when it met Nadda and Jitendra Singh on 24 July. Three non-negotiable asks:
- Pradhan’s resignation.
- Compensation.
- Withdrawal of the FIRs.
Every one of those is retrospective. Not one of them touches the NTA, the CBSE on-screen marking failures that ran alongside the NEET leak, or the structure that produces leaks in the first place. They got the man and assurances on the other two, and the thirty-six day sit-in was withdrawn against a promise of talks in four weeks (sounds a bit like the Iran-USA talks).
The patriotic register that made the movement uncontainable is also a constraint on what it can ask for next. You can demand a resignation under the tricolour. It is considerably harder to demand a redistributive settlement under it, and the grievance underneath NEET is not really about question papers. Verisk Maplecroft has India as the highest-risk country on its civil unrest index, with average protest participation more than doubling in a year. That is the number to watch, not the reshuffle.
And the BJP’s mandate was already about a third of the national vote in 2024. What was punctured over the last five weeks was never Hindutva. It was the assumption that incumbency is costless. Identity politics arbitrages inequality perfectly well as long as the ladder is believed in. The leak was a claim that the ladder is rigged, made by the people who most wanted to believe in it.
I know there is a consistent pattern to downplay BJP mandate in 2024 and undermine its credibility as being only 1/3rd. But facts/numbers need to be put on record. BJP secured 36.56% of the vote but it is governing as part of the NDA coalition which secured 43.80%. The corresponding numbers for 2019 election were 37.36% and 45.3%. (data from wiki). To put this in context, there seem to be only 2 elections 1984 (post assassination) and 1957 when Congress vote share crossed 45%.
“Verisk Maplecroft has India as the highest-risk country on its civil unrest index,”
Is this like arsonist handing out his/her target list?
these are good points..
FPTP is a clear way of sorting out the winners.
The labour party won 411 seats with just 33% of the vote. When multiple players enter the fray in FPTP, this is what happens. If anything, the reduction in the number of regional parties in India will result in greater political stability within the Indian political system simply because FPTP vote share will correlate more with the total seats won. Frankly, for the fragmented polity in India, getting approximately 37% vote share is remarkable in FPTP, and these numbers will only get better with fewer players.
“If anything, the reduction in the number of regional parties in India will result in greater political stability within the Indian political system “
The UK experience says otherwise. The “plan” for India is something like Germany to make it completely unable to become a competent strong state.
“The UK experience says otherwise. ” Can you please elaborate on this?
Are you saying the two party system didn’t result in stability in the UK?
it was fairly stable will Cameron resigned. Look at last 10 years or so. Same story with France after Chirac. Stability is stable at the President level because of how the constitution is structured and saving grace. But France is barely a Live Player in International level. Same with Germany after Merkel.
True..my point was that stability of the leader is a function of the vote that the leader actually gets..i think 7 PMs in 10 years in the UK is a function of a fragmented polity that is reflected in their voting percentage split. I think/hope the opposite will happen in India given the changes in the Indian political landscape, even though the malcontents “plan” for India may be different.
Go one level deeper and ask why these 3 EU powerhouses suddenly became incapable of producing leaders who could wield a majority vote in a fairly homogeneous polity.
The UK is exceptionally stable because of the Constitutional Monarchy.
08/09 crash
BREXIT 2015/2016
Pandemic 2020-2022
Huge events for a relatively small island nation BUT what KS did do was genius.
He kept the UK out of the US-Iran fracas.
And then what happened to KS?
Epstein felled him..
So that is actually the system working as it should.
There was no reason as why the Education Minister shouldn’t have reason on the back of such a huge scandal.
This was a silly hill to die on. It shows the government isn’t holding itself to be accountable.
CJP in fact seem to be very disciplined. Even Bharat Mata Ki Jai chants shows that this wasn’t “anti-national.”
What is interesting is that Abhijit Dipke is a proud Dalit.
“Epstein felled him..So that is actually the system working as it should.”
Cursory google search tells that KS himself was not involved in any Epstein misconduct but appointed Mandelson who was later revealed to be involved. OK.
DP was silly hill to die on, but the way govt handled the agitation and then gave in to mob veto is troubling.
You are being selective in highlighting “Bharat Mata ki Jai” (please correct your derogatory typo). There were other crass, vulgar slogans raised against Modi and Shah including shooting Modi.
Sorry about the typo; on mobile.
Epstein & Mandy deeply damaged KS’s credibility, he wasn’t seen as leading Labour to the next election.
Just because they were abusing leaders, doesn’t mean they were being anti-national?
First make up your mind about whether multiple PMs not complete a full term in office is good or bad.
It doesn’t matter in a UK context because the PM is seen as a glorified mandarin. The Monarchy has been doing doing this sort of callisthenics for centuries ..
A mandate for governance not for avoiding accountability.
This is the key part being missed as long as you take tax money from everyone whether they voted for you or not, you are accountable to then and cant dismiss any questions as a conspiracy.
Getting majority of the seats from 30% of th votes mean thst enough people want you to govern not that everyone has chosen them to he our kings
Please ask if you cant understand the above.
you and XTM are consistently downplaying BJP/NDA vote share as 1/3rd to imply that they limited mandate. Now you have revised it further downwards to 30%.
Yes as tax payer or even as a citizen you have a right to ask questions, petition the courts etc but you don’t get a veto by indulging in street violence. That is crux of the issue since 2014. The loss of veto for certain sections.
//Yes as tax payer or even as a citizen you have a right to ask questions, petition the courts etc but you don’t get a veto by indulging in street violence//
There was no street violence, what violence occurred was mostly done by the Delhi police because the people who manage them think every protest can be delegetimized and berated and then put down through state violence.
You may think that getting the seats means that the party in power should not be questioned for whatever reason, that is not how any democracy should work.
I will explain this further in another post so thst hopefully everyone can understand the principle here.
The police was responding to attacks. Even if that is debatable, Wasn’t there an attempt to storm parliament on 20th?
//Wasn’t there an attempt to storm parliament on 20th//
It was not an attempt to storm the parliament but march there to talk to thr leaders that have been elected.
The only thing the protestors can be blamed for is breaking barricade which themselves were msde to keep the crowd contained and rile them up by keeping in the sweltering heat.
Had the govt agreed to the meet the protestors and engage with them or allowed permission for a march, none of this would have happened.
For readers who do not know, after the parliament attack in 2001 by LeT, the rules of engagement provide that any forcible breaking of the barricade is treated as terrorist attack and invites deadly force. This was precisely the gameplan. Cause forces to “over-react” and then play on the dead bodies of the students.
Of course every group which has demands not only has right to protest at Jantar Mantar but storm the parliament barricades if they demands are not acceded to immediately. Let’s remember this standard when the sides are switched.
“tHe pOLiCe wEre BrUtAL AnD tHe pRoTeSteRs are doodh ke dhule”.
Allow the man his biases. Its ok. No point in arguing.
Lets just pretend that the policeman tasked with keeping the peace on the street is not part of the middle class or even the ‘poor’. Lets forget that he has a tough job handling a mob hurling obscenities and stones his way, with substandard equipment and training. Lets just forget that they are even human. They are just an evil ‘stormtroooopers’ standing in the way of the ‘noble rebellion’. Its…laughably silly.
The anti-Modi menagerie got a minister’s scalp. They’ve peaked. The only way is down from here. To wit, Rahul Gandhi’s impotent cringe worthy attempts at making short ‘reels’ demanding that the “government must be brought down”. Viva la revolucion. I’ll be right back from yet another vacay in Bangkok. Its all so….pathetically tragicomic.
The protestors did not force thr Delhi police to barricade them, did not put them up in the middle of a situation the ruling party escalated by not talking and discussing in the first place and certainly the protestoes did not force the police to fire, tear gas,lathi charge, or the RAF to use pellet guns.
The protestors wete protesting peacefully before Wangchuk was forcibly hospitalised. Had the govt not taken the leadership away from the protest when it needed guidance the most. The funny thing is none of you guys care about the pellet gun injuries, the tear gas shells or the people hospitalised during the lathi charge
But then again you still cant admit thst you wete made to hate the protestors based on biased narratives that wete discarded the moment they failed outside of one ecosystem. Even when you are made a fool of you cant bring yourself to abandon your love
//The anti-Modi menagerie got a minister’s scalp. They’ve peaked. The only way is down from here. To wit, Rahul Gandhi’s impotent cringe worthy attempts at making short ‘reels’ demanding that the “government must be brought down”. Viva la revolucion. I’ll be right back from yet another vacay in Bangkok. Its all so….pathetically tragicomic.//
If anything this showed that the one generation that were only exposed to pro givt propaganda still got over it, that lot more people dislike state of affairs than many thought and people are willing to come and fight for accountability. That it also showed many non bjp voters thst you guys, no matter how reluctant, hate the person oppos8ng your favorite party no matter how valid the demand, or what the background they come from is. This is much more deadly to your favorite party than anything.The godi media being shown to be cringe and incompetent is another bonus
Enjoy your vacation, please reflect on whether the really tragically comical thing is that narratives that pollute so many people against their fellow citizens, and the party on behalf of whom you do so much firefighting because of these, are not even taken seriously by the creators themselves or not.
I was referring to RaGa not me 😀
I could not tell. I dont think about how to save a politician honor all the time. Why are you projecting onto me?
Anyways you definitely need a vacation. I think you have worked very hard this last week.
You know all forces over reaction can be prevented by actually talking to people before hand.
You are also wrong about who was wanting the forces to react it is not the protestors. Trucks filled with stones or broken cars domt appear in the morning before a major march out of thin air. Neither do leaders get taken away just before a march any unbiased observer can see who was planning to play on whose bodies given that the fsct that the originator of all these narratives disregarded them and did it what it should have done in the first place
you can fingerpoint all you want, nobody forced the protesters to prioritize political gimmicks ahead of actual reform or solutions. That one can’t be pinned on BJP stormtroopers, or evil pooolis, or other fairies and goblins.
//you can fingerpoint all you want, nobody forced the protesters to prioritize political gimmicks ahead of actual reform or solutions. //
Brininging accountability to a system is not a gimmick. We citizens have only protest as a way to make governments do their job when they are either not doing it or it is unsatisfactory. No point discussing anything if the one mechanism to get work done is defunct. We have already lost our media, and due to massive imbalance in funds even election mandates have no meaning. Maybe not for you but protests are the only thing many people have left.
//That one can’t be pinned on BJP stormtroopers, or evil pooolis, or other fairies and goblins.//
Stormtroopers huh?
The CJP managed to get attention paid to an investigation that like many others of this nature could have gone nowhere,it got people who messed up and are incompetent removed. All that was achived by their opponents among the citizens is that they showed to many thst they have an even deeper disgust and hostility than the people they get their narratives from.
Whatever discussion we do is an idle one if we have no way of getting things implemented in case of shoddy work.
Why weren’t bjp supporters demanding accountability? Is the hostility for others more than their desire for reform, the past week suggest so
Trucks filled with stones is worth investigating. I assume you would oppose withdrawal of FIRs for people involved in stone throwing and arson. By your logic government helped farmers protest and shaheen bhag as well.
Yes investigation should be made and if people involved in theee activities were part of the protests then they should be punished. Don’t know why you would think I would be partisan on this.
//By your logic government helped farmers protest and shaheen bhag as well.//
Don’t know what you mean by this since all of you guys keep on misunderstanding my words and thoughts for some reason. Please explain more.
Why do you assume I’m on Calvin’s team..
Other than Patnaik(s) no Odia had reached positions of power in Delhi. Odias are not sly in court politics unlike Punjabis, Bengalis, and Tamils who corner a lot more than their fair share. BJP has invested deeply in Orissa: Murmu, Pradhan, Vaishnav, and Oram.
Railways and Education are the worst ministries, btw Vaishnav is the rail minister. Pradhan just got unlucky. As Petroleum minister he oversaw gas connections to 80 million poor households with Ujjwala. As Education minister he did good work on NEP including the College entry-exit reforms, and promoting Indian languages. This was a mistake at the end of the day unlike farm laws, repealing which was a debacle.
The protests were small compared to how scenes were when we used to do this in 2011. Like the fading, loss of vitality, of Middle Earth. Wangchuk is the Sauron to Anna’s Morgoth. Dipke-Ranka are to Kejrival-Sisodiya what Middle-men were to Numenoreans.
Fundamental issue is getting anything done. BJP fields a large number of self made full-time, professional politicians. Not hanger-arounds, camp-followers, part-timers, ‘intellectuals’, caste/religion/region rentiers, and the likes who have no experience getting things done. Toilets, Water, Gas, Electricity, Roads, Airplanes, Ports, … BJP gets stuff done while Gandhi protests even the benign port in Nicobar.
Agree on DP’s past work but edu min has been source of Ls’ since Jan and for whatever galaxy brain there was no outreach from DP or BJP to correct the record.
I have to agree. DP has been asleep at the wheel. When RW handles were pointing out the kinds of intolerance was being given space in unis with their “Eradicating Hinduism” conferences and lectures he has 0 reaction or concern.
Even if this is true is it actually enough to maintain a grasp on power in the modern world? If you don’t have a public intellectual class that have socially-accepted credentials, regularly produce cutting-edge scholarship, and hold positions in socially-respected institutions, then aren’t you setting yourself up to let your enemies tell your story for you?
Is it or is it not will have to be measured in elections.
Scholars interested in commenting on public policy tend to have strong priors. Raghuram Rajan comes to mind as someone who routinely makes wrong predictions and never recants. How many other things was he wrong about that we don’t even know? How about Jairam Ramesh? How many million man hours of misery did his priors cause?
Practicing scholars will find it is surprisingly easy to get heard by BJP. Swapan Dasgupta, the Finance minister of Bengal was literally asking for ideas on Bengal’s finances on Facebook a few weeks back.
I think people over-read and over-fit the impacts of ‘intellectual class’ into elections.
Elections have their own …brownian random motion powered by simply too many variables, local and national. And most voters are always going to have anti-incumbency hard-wired in. Its just the nature of the beast.
In the end the ‘story-telling’ wars are fought on multiple fronts, and ‘intellectuals’ are just one front – its just that most perspectives have their self-driven biases…
Perhaps in the pre-digital non-social media era, the impact of intellectuals was higher. Today, its significantly reduced. We’ve seen almost a pushback against said ‘intellectual class’ in the west and other more ‘modern’ democracies. And to me, such pushback is simply a manifestation of anti-incumbency girded with economic uncertainty and discontent.
in
At the end of the day, folks vote their ….pheelings. Which are largely powered by economics first, and then behavioral instincts second. The latter can be influenced to some degree, but not as much as folks like to believe.
Lots of LOTR references – nice one
//As Petroleum minister he oversaw gas connections to 80 million poor households with Ujjwala//
He should have stayed a petroleum minister then
//Fundamental issue is getting anything done. BJP fields a large number of self made full-time, professional politicians. Not hanger-arounds, camp-followers, part-timers, ‘intellectuals’, caste/religion/region rentiers, and the likes who have no experience getting things done. Toilets, Water, Gas, Electricity, Roads, Airplanes, Ports, … BJP gets stuff done while Gandhi protests even the benign port in Nicobar.//
The port may be necessary but the whose tourism project can be done anywhere else and dont need a to destroy a pristine rainforest especially when we are seeing worsening effects of climate change. Maybe Indian politics need you to start with a hyperbole to then negotiate down to get what is more reasonable?
And every party does work built on the work of others. For something like roads if you apply the current formula to the roads developed during UPA the rate of building is not to different. There are other issues in delivery that gets hidden, like many toilets and taps not having water in them, even if building these infra is a good initiative nonetheless.
Why should the tourist resort not happen? Indians go to Phuket, Batam-Bintan, Bali, and Singapore, why can’t we add a decent place in India?
And why not do it in Nicobar again? Not to inconvenience a 1000 native people who live there and will continue to live there? 2500 people die every year on the Mumbai train network trying to make a living. Have some mercy, let progress happen.
India’s per capita emission is less than half of Vietnam’s, a fifth of China, and a seventh of the US.
No no, “Indians breed like rabbits and worship demons”. So even though we have maintained tremendous diversity in flora and fauna for such high population density, we can’t develop strategic locations with dual economic and security purposes. See reasons…
Has nothing to do with Indias decreasing birth rate but entirely with the fact that neither will Indias poor benefit from any tourism projects( not neccesaarily the case with the port) and that our rich can br given a place to frolic and relax like in phukwt anywhere else in India. No need to make it in Nicobar at the cost of evergreen forests in a geopolitical sensitive place.
Oh so projects are only good if they benefit the poor and if it benefits the middle class it is a bad project. Amazing logic.
“The poor aren’t the ones who will be employed by ISRO, no need to invest in it.”.
“The poor aren’t the ones who will ‘benefit’ from manufacturing iphones, no need to invest in it”.
This is the logic that saw Bengal famously lose out to Gujarat when it came to Tata Motors manufacturing facility.
This is a textbook example of why I am deeply skeptical of the motivations and arguments made by these so-called progressives. Push comes to shove, their rhetoric about the poor isn’t really for the poor – its just weaponizing the ‘poor’ so that their preferred political ‘boys’ can call the shots.
Can you tell me why similar amount of money is not being spent on adding more buses and trains in the fleet. If the BMC can either do one or the other then it is clear by choosing the coastal road it is the rich whose comfort is being prioritised.
Money being spent on ISRO , money is also being spent on scholarships for ac/st youth, mgnrega and many other schemes that help people. If anything if yiubadd subsidies too much money is being given to the welfare and lesser to fund research in state and other central universities.
You know that the Nano plant closrd down in gujarat but a another plant for pharmaceuticals I think built in Kharagpur by TATAs is still going on. If anything bengal fell behind because it allowed hooliganism in the name of union protests.
Just because I dont like it when prijects that benefit only the rich are pushed at the expense of others, it does not mean I like it when projects that benefit only the poor are pushed at the expense of others either. Once again you seem to be arguing with a caricature you made in your mind.
The poor people will benefit is something others brought up not me.
The majority of mumbais middle class use local trains and don’t have cars. A lot of money spent on the coastal road but nowhere near enough is spent on adding more buses or trains which are desperately needed and then add the increased flooding that road can create.
If similar amounts were spent on both there would be no need to make comparison but since money for everything seems to be in short supply, it is clear that the rich are being favored in mumbai over the middle class and poor.
They need to implement my traffic tax haha and redirect the money to public transport
It has been proven worldwide that buses and trains are better for public transport.
I dont mind creating the coastal road( though I am disappointed mangroved need to be cut) but spend equivalent money for buses and train as well.
If you cant spend on both choose the thing that benefits the majority of people.
>The majority of mumbais middle class use local trains and don’t have cars.
Have you ever lived in Bombay? what exactly is your argument?
This first world copy-paste of ideas and policy is cringe-worthy and tiresome to ‘argue against’.
I am from.mumbai.
Since you dont seem to be aware only 1.5 million of a population of 18-20 million own cars. The bus and trains are nowhere near enough for a city this size.
If you cant spend on both cars and public transport then choose the thing which benefits most people.
Rather than trying to forcefit my ideas into a caricatire and pre conceived notion engage with the substance this whole trying to fit my arguments in a box is lazy argumentation.
//Why should the tourist resort not happen? Indians go to Phuket, Batam-Bintan, Bali, and Singapore, why can’t we add a decent place in India?//
Why there and not in Srivijaya or Vishakapatnam where deforestation has already happened and there is tremodenous scope for tourism without destroying evergreen forests.
None of the country’s have a major tourist spot where their countries rich and powerful will be expected to vacation other than Singapore FYI.
//And why not do it in Nicobar again? Not to inconvenience a 1000 native people who live there and will continue to live there? 2500 people die every year on the Mumbai train network trying to make a living. Have some mercy, let progress happen.//
The people who die on mumbai locals are not the ones who will be going to Nicobar Islands to enjoy the facilities but the same rich people for whom coastal road is being developed instead of buying more buses and trains that have not only been shown to reduce congestion worldwide but will also help prevent people dying daily.
If we already have less emission why increase it for the sake of providing convenience to our rich, that can be provided elsewhere with lesser destruction.
Umm, because a resort island with blue water beaches is not the same as an existing built-up city that doesn’t have the same geographical attributes?
The fact that you are arguing against tourism development in Andaman-Nicobar, to me, demonstrates that you’ve lost a large chunk of capacity to be objective, to your partisan bias.
Who will gain from these resorts; is it the Oligarchs or the people themselves?
These are worthwhile questions to ask.
The richer are getting richer all over the world (not just India).
Are we seriously making these arguments? At this point I just have to assume that you are on some degrowth nonsense. The rich getting richer is an unimportant fact the real focus of any society should be that its poor aren’t deprived of any basic need. Inequality beyond that is a reality of any industrialized society. India is surprisingly low on the scale of income inequality with its GINI coeff at 0.25 while every western nation lies around 0.3-0.5. The reality is industrialization will improve the lives of the poor and the rich. There is no value in being equally poor.
These are important questions to ask.
Growth for the sake of growth isn’t sufficient in its own right.
Growth is a wave that lifts all ships. You should be deeply worried about a society that does not grow. Any society which grows at least 2% GDP per capita is going be much more stable regardless of the source of the growth due to the opportunities it creates to satisfy its ambitions.
When you start with “The moooooodi / BJP is bad, bad verrry bad” then the logical corollary is that anything and everything that the current administration does, is ‘bad, bad verrry bad”.
I don’t think inequity is all that healthy..
I would like to see double digit growth as well but if the growth is simply going to flow to Oligarchs, who don’t have noblesse obligee, well..
But that isn’t even the case. I’ve literally showed you that India is perhaps one of the most equal economies in the G20 according to the GINI coeff. Any nation that seriously believes this nonsense will simply go down the drain in the terms of GDP per capita, and stability.
Have I said no to growth. There are ways to achieve 10% annual growth without an oligarchy (China?)
It is very much a choice between Oligarchy (America) and Autocracy (China). Those are the only two paths to growth.
America had its best growth when the tax rates were the highest and oligarchy had limits put on them after the great depression. Since the US has been supporting oligarchy its gains are being steadily eroded.
The Chinese are afraid that if they mess up too bad they will be beaten, and made to kill themselves like during the cultural revolutions. This fear is what keeps the govt accountable and more focused in doing all it can to benefit everyone, even taking steps that may harm the economy lile letting the housing market crash so people can have cheap housing. They also invest in public infrastructure quite a lot.
You’ve been literally cribbing against the Nicobar project. China has done orders of magnitude worse things for their rare earths monopoly. Let’s be real you want India to be follow neither the American model nor the Chinese model.
We can learn from China and America mistakes.
I have never said that the port and military base should not be built but there is no public interest in building a playground for the rich at thst islaand when otjer places are there.
Did I ever oppose mining for rare earth’s anywhere in India? I dont like the environmental degradation but i can understand the necessity. Mining minerals like that is in public interest because we reduce our import bill.
None of you guys have been able to insert why not build that tourism project somewhere else? Bringing up things that are in public interest that I am not against instead.
Yes, therefore give up your car, give up frequent air travel, don’t live in fancy hotels, or eat in nice restaurants. Move to Dimapur with family, and spread the word of your lord.
That is a false dichotomy ..
I also removed your other comment for being way too personal; don’t weaponise.
Oh wait your Honey Singh!! And Bombay Badshah, welcome back buddy.
The only commentator, whose MO, is to weaponise the personal.
How interesting I was thinking this is a thread BB would like.
No it isn’t. You can’t preach for the poor nations of the world to not have hotels because of inequality and then happily enjoy the fruits of that inequality.
Did I say not to have hotels; India has the best hospitality culture on the planet.
To be honest I do feel Sri Lanka is a natural holiday spot, and it already has the infrastructure.
Maybe the solution is for an ever closer SAARC or maybe India should create some sort of Dharmic Union; with countries with majority Hindu or Buddhist heritage .
India – Nepal – Sri Lanka – Bhutan – Myanmar – Thailand – Cambodia – Vietnam – Laos – Singapore? – China? – Mongolia?
It’s a surprisingly small list.
This was the exact quote. 99.5% of Indians do not have passports, therefore to satisfy most of the tourism demand in the country India will have to develop tourism infrastructure. The current infrastructure is severely lacking to the point where we could double it and still be in a deficit. Therefore, any points made against its expansion are to be viewed with suspicion.
Indian leaders have entertained these geopolitical fantasies for far too long. panchsheel, non-aligned, … please behave like a normal country with sane people for once. For once we have grass root workers rise to power with clear majority who understand there were no toilets and water in the villages. Build the damn roads, and high speed rails and airports and factories and ports, build cities and people will come.
This imagined enemy does not exist. The vocabulary of class war is without substance. Every sacrifice : every square mile of shrub levelled for even a private port/airport/road/mine has us paid back a hundred fold. India needs less policing, not more, the country is suffocating to live in as it is. The impotent, the dull, the rentiers, the feudals, the ‘academia’ clergy out maneuver the bourgeiosie into submission with their language.
I am not BB.
Also I believe the same arguments regarding tourism would never have been made about Sri Lanka whose entire economy revolves around this sector.
XTM likes to………..amplify the devil’s advocate from time to time 🙂
I ….understand.
I do not think at all that he’s into degrowth or any of that BS.
Brother Calvin on the other hand, has the clear-eyed faith of the ‘true believer’ partisan when it comes to faux progressive long debunked talking points of the Lelis. 🙂
//Brother Calvin on the other hand, has the clear-eyed faith of the ‘true believer’ partisan when it comes to faux progressive long debunked talking points of the Lelis. 🙂//
You love to seem to fit arguments you disagree with into boxes that allow you dismiss everything without engaging with the substance of what I am saying.
It is lazy argumentation and frankly this kind of enlightened centrism that thinks taking a side and having a position ( or at least one you dont agree with) became cringe in 2020 itself.
What exactly is your counter to my arguments that similar money is not being spent on buses and other public transport? Or that the city’s 1.5 million registered car owners are being givin more priority over others.
Do you have any argument beside pontificating on others biases but your own, which you seem too ashamed to admit to?
what are my “biases” that I am “too ashamed to admit to”
😀
I have already mentioned this.
You are partial to the ruling party thst you claim to reluctantly vote for.
It is very clear in the arguments you make, towards whom and from where you get the narratives you express.
“The richer are getting richer all over the world (not just India).”
Yeah but this standard is effectively applied to sabotage development which helps India’s poor. For example the tuticorin copper plant was closed down due to pollution concerns rather than fix any underlying issues. This has lead to increased copper imports. Even with Nicobar port, people pretend that having a commercial port and tourist destination will help cross-subsidize the costs of maintaining an increased armed presence. No India can only spend on imported white elephant defense platforms and maintain strict separation between its civilian and defense sectors.
Also the folks kvetching about equity and oligarchs have nothing to say about the extraction of investments and fines from said oligarchs.
India needs more Deng Xiopings and not Maos – crucifying the bourgeoise instead of letting them blossom, is not pro-poor. Its pro-poverty.
we restored this comment
I have never acted like I am enlightened centrist while only criticising one side and defending the other so don’t accuse me of bias.
I thibk that the forests in the Nicobar Island are more important than a city for the rich and powerful to vacation in. I dont think that this is something to do both sideism in. You think that the forests are less important than a city for the rich and powerful to vacation in, it is your opinion and one I disagree with.
Also Sri Vijaya has the exact same beaches but without having to destroy a evergreen forest, you are bringing up caricatures without answering the main question why not anywhere else with lesser amount of virgin forests?
There is always difference of opinion on projects – its subjective. You are entitled to your personal opinions, but throwing around baseless assertions about the motivations of development projects is ….partisan hyperbole.
I would hope that the discussion space on BP is more fact driven and less a turf war for hurling combative political propaganda.
//I would hope that the discussion space on BP is more fact driven and less a turf war for hurling combative political propaganda.//
All of the argument against the student protestors thst have been put forward here in the last few days have been taken directly from combative political propaganda sites, that as later actions show had no substance.
All of your arguments are ” ohhh.. this is similar a caricatuee of a left liberal argument I heard long time back. Immediately dismiss”
None of you guys can answer my question as to why Sri Vijaya in Andamans csnt be made into a tourism spot.
Nor do you have any counter to why are projects that benfit 1.5 million car owners getting all the money but projects that benefit all of mumbai like buying 7000 more buses to augment the 3000 that are strained ignored.
Please read what I write and give a proper counter, your pontification on political biases is only required for you and you only.
Is India a nation state or a State of nations?
It would be good if Indians holidayed at home than abroad. I find the hotel restricitons very onerous (no
Partying after midnight).
Sri Vijaya on Andaman Islands has similar environment and beaches with lesser deforestation required. It havunt some built up area is another bonus.
I am not against the port or the military base or making a hotel in any other island. The main question none seem to be asking is why there and not elsewhere, that no one is interested in countering or has a good counter to.
India has 51K square kilometers of evergreen forests, 8% of the country’s forest cover is evergreen and the only ‘species’ at risk of extinction in Great Nicobar are the tribals. Hawaii, Phuket, Kuala Lampur – Klang, Langkawi, Surabaya, Brunei, Pattaya, Davos, … every one was probably a rain forest at some point. And did anyone say that the resort will have private beaches? If not then what really is the issue here?
Did you support or oppose Aarey ‘forest’ being felled for the metro? Or was it also for rich Mumbaikars?
Likewise: Navi Mumbai Airport, POSCO steel plant, Vendanta bauxite mine, multiple power plants, multiple roads… the list is very long. All done within one term of UPA by Jairam Ramesh. He unilaterally and without consultation with even colleagues accepted carbon emission cuts for India. Tens of billions of dollars, thousands of lives and livelihoods, lost on the convenient theatrics and ‘conviction’ of the few.
Indians are not that poor either, you see Indians being shamed for crowding beaches in Phuket and Pattaya? Build it already, so that by the time country gets old it does not look like Kolkata.
//India has 51K square kilometers of evergreen forests, 8% of the country’s forest cover is evergreen and the only ‘species’ at risk of extinction in Great Nicobar are the tribals. Hawaii, Phuket, Kuala Lampur – Klang, Langkawi, Surabaya, Brunei, Pattaya, Davos, … every one was probably a rain forest at some point. And did anyone say that the resort will have private beaches? If not then what really is the issue here?//
We only have 8% of forests thst will never grow back again. At least in multiple lifetime.
So other plafes made mistakes we should also do so.
Can you answer my question why not Sri Viajya that is in the same location, had the same beaches, weather and even a town to boot. Why are you OK with destroying a forest when thwre is already land elsewhere to build? Anyways since this is a 30 year long project hope we have a change in seeing these forest and realize their value in preserving as much as we can rather than only thinking of them as real estate with no value.
//Did you support or oppose Aarey ‘forest’ being felled for the metro? Or was it also for rich Mumbaikars?//
I was not against it, and you dont understand my point.
My issues with the coastal road is that it is not being done along with increase in buses and trains. A project that benefits 1.5 million people is being given more attention and money over a project benefitting everyone.
//Likewise: Navi Mumbai Airport, POSCO steel plant, Vendanta bauxite mine, multiple power plants, multiple roads… the list is very long. All done within one term of UPA by Jairam Ramesh. He unilaterally and without consultation with even colleagues accepted carbon emission cuts for India. Tens of billions of dollars, thousands of lives and livelihoods, lost on the convenient theatrics and ‘conviction’ of the few.//
You seem to not understand what I am saying. I am not saying forest won’t ever be cut but in cases where you cam avoid cutting them and shift the project elsewhere with human habitation, modest development, little bit away from sensitive trade routes and the same beach, and weather why not do it there? Maybe the things you mentioend here were unavoidable, maybe they were not but this destruction of Nicobar Island to make a vacation spot for the rich definitely is.
We only have 8% of forests thst will never grow back again. At least in multiple lifetime.
What? The city takes up 65 sq km.
“So other plafes made mistakes we should also do so.”
No they did not make the mistake, we made mistakes and vote with our feets to go there. Look at the flights from India to these places and count the ones that go to Andamans.
“My issues with the coastal road is that it is not being done along with increase in buses and trains. A project that benefits 1.5 million people is being given more attention and money over a project benefitting everyone.”
Yet somehow BJP has built 900 km of new metro tracks since the 250 km it inherited in 2014.
UPA Era (₹2,089 cr to ₹5,000 cr): Funded a single wave of roughly 23,000 diesel and CNG buses with up-front cash.
NDA Era (₹65,000+ cr): Funds over 57,000 zero-emission electric buses through long-term operational contracts and charging infrastructure.
“this destruction of Nicobar Island”
What destruction? Enough of this hyperbole already. I don’t see Bintan as destroyed.
“shift the project elsewhere with human habitation, modest development, little bit away from sensitive trade routes and the same beach, and weather why not do it there?”
No build it right there, there are no lions or tigers or elephants or anything there. Don’t fall for this again, build it right where it has the best chance of becoming big. In Sri Vijaya these same people will come up with other excuses, therefore build it right next to the port. The argument here is to build a port in Singapore and the city that supports it in Yangoon, no thank you.
//What? The city takes up 65 sq km.//
And that city can be made anywhere else. I dont see forests like that as just real estate, no matter how small.
//No they did not make the mistake, we made mistakes and vote with our feets to go there. Look at the flights from India to these places and count the ones that go to Andamans.//
Again why not build on the infrastructure already present in Sri Vijaya rather than spending million to build everything for scratch?
//No build it right there, there are no lions or tigers or elephants or anything there. Don’t fall for this again, build it right where it has the best chance of becoming big. In Sri Vijaya these same people will come up with other excuses, therefore build it right next to the port. The argument here is to build a port in Singapore and the city that supports it in Yangoon, no thank you.//
Singapore can support the water needs of the people that live on it.
It is highly unlikely that this island thst has barely even had a lakh humans in its whole natural history can do so.
The Andaman Islands have mote capacity, support stable population and is closer to mainland India for supply runs.
Just because there are no lions and tigers there does not mean it has less value. Olive ridley turtles,crocodiles, and mangroves are as necessary and ecologically vital as any of the animals you mention.
The port does not need a city to run, it is the city that needs the port to run.
Keeping in mind that carrying capacity of island is one major concern, I dont think the Nicobar Island arw a good place.
If you could stop seeing the island as Just a piece of real estate you would understand. Hope more people in India learn to see foreats as natural treasure over the 30 years this island is being planned.
//Yet somehow BJP has built 900 km of new metro tracks since the 250 km it inherited in 2014.
UPA Era (₹2,089 cr to ₹5,000 cr): Funded a single wave of roughly 23,000 diesel and CNG buses with up-front cash.
NDA Era (₹65,000+ cr): Funds over 57,000 zero-emission electric buses through long-term operational contracts and charging infrastructure//
Electric buses became economically viable during the NDA term.
Furthermore, the argument is why is disproportionate money being given to the coastal road and not to adding more buses and trains. Not that the UPA did more work or the bjp did not do anything at all.
Please engage with the argument at hand.
the argument is why is disproportionate money being given to the coastal road and not to adding more buses and trains.
You are seriously arguing that the hundreds of billions spent on expanding metro and rail don’t count?
Do you have any data to back up your assertion of ‘not adding more trains’?
Such …silliness is why you are seen as a one-eyed partisan btw.
//You are seriously arguing that the hundreds of billions spent on expanding metro and rail don’t count?//
The problem is that you are avoiding the question the same money that is spent on the coastal road for 1.5 million people can be spent on increasing local train so 8 people don’t die everyday
Bringing in the metros does not justify the partisanship in choosing projects the same money could have been used in extending the metro across the central line that most mumbaikars travel on. But alas that is something that never crossed your mind
//Such …silliness is why you are seen as a one-eyed partisan btw./_
It is only silly because the lot of you are link your honor to these projects and think I am trying to tarnish It. If you cant separate yourself from them and argue It is not me being partisan.
Anyways all you people’s partisanship has been in display and called out by me, people who love to call out others seem to not like to be called out themselves
Why there: Because it it closest to the shipping route and has deep waters, the port has a rationale to be there. And a city has to come up next to the port.
Signing out. This is stupid.
Beyond. And if you challenge it, you are labelled a blind BJP supporter.
The wannabe left is so lost in its illogic, the blindspot is massive.
If you display same hostility towards protestors against the govt as ruling party supporters.
If you dont care about rhe misdeeds and intentions of the ruling party after it instigated you against other citizens.
And If you clearly seem to be getting your viewpoints from the same media that regularly tells ruling party supporters to hate and be suspicious of fellow citizens
Don’t be surprised if you are called a ruling party supporter.
Enlightened centrists always can see bias in others and act superior but can rarely see it in themselves ao not surprising really.
Calvin I really didn’t care which side you supported prior to this discussion but I know enough to say anyone who calls themselves enlightened does so to bash someone else’s ideas. I’d rather support the right wing than whatever the hell you’re peddling.
I am not calling someone myself an enlightened centrist but criticising those who act as if having a side or a stake and not being neutral is some sort of thing to be ashamed about especially when they have very clear biases themselves.
Please read what I have read not what you want to see. I am saying I am not an enlightened centrist. I dont know why you are reading things that are not there.
Suppor the right wing, I am mucu more happy with that than someone who says they dont have a side they support and then only bashes one sides opponents.
Be open about your biases.
BTW I dont belive that being a bjp supporter makes your arguments worthy of dismissal.
I only bring this up with you so that you cant use your mask of neutrality to dismiss what I say by labelling my argument as a caricature of something else.
Once more you are projecting your own mentality that being biased towards a cause is worthy of dismissal. I dont think so, and have never used this as an reason to dismiss anything you guys have to say.
I just dont believe that narratives that primarily come from hostility and distrust of others are worth engaging in, especially if the source is social medisla or 9 PM news that have a history of fake news, this tendency to judge and mistrust others by default not the party you support is what I dont want to coddle.
Please read the above slowly.
I never said anything about not building a port. I am talking about a tourism project.
Since no one can answer a simple question as to why do you need to destroy a forest to build a vacation spot for te rici you try to act as if I am against the port.
Learn to read properly. Where did I say the port should not be built? Dont argue against a non sequitror
Why do you do anything? Why don’t you retreat to the jungle and do ooga booga?
what about ooga woooga?
heard this in the gym this evening.
https://youtu.be/l6DepmNwbn8
Why are you so attached to a tourism project in thst particular area?
None of you are reading what I am saying but arguing against caricatures.
Because you are worthy of caricaturing. Your points are openly anti-developmental in a country which needs to more than double the capacity on each of the things you oppose. I want the number of tourism projects in my country to more than double in the next decade. Because every time I decide to go for a vacation in India it is grossly overpriced for what is delivered to me. In a country like that opposition to any project needs to be justified not the logic for creating a project.
Its first world copy-paste virtue signaling. Weaponized rhetoric based on political tribalism.
There is much more nuance to what I am saying.
And tribalism implies my honor will be affected if the coastal road or the Nicobar project is built.
It will not but I am not sure if you will be able to deal with life if these projects get cancelled.
I am not anti development as I have repeatedly if you would bother to read rather than take everything I say as an attack on your honor which you seem to br linking to these projects.
And I want that resort to be built just not on that island. Why you are so insistent on it being there and taking any suggestions that it be built elsewhere as an attack in your honor is beyond me.
You really need to self reflect as to what causes you to get so emotional about a tourist project you will.maybr visit once if it ever gets built.
// I want the number of tourism projects in my country to more than double in the next decade. Because every time I decide to go for a vacation in India it is grossly overpriced for what is delivered to me. In a country like that opposition to any project needs to be justified not the logic for creating a project.//
Then why not advocate for the money proposed to be spent to built that tourist project from scratch and developing and upgrading our amenities
You will most likely be able to visit Goa, mangalore or kerala as well as Odisha many, many more times than that Nicobar project.
Building up our amenities is much more pro development, helps many more people and would even help make upit vacations cheaper. If you would actually care about improving tourism and not defending some expensive project you havr linked your honor to for some reason you would see we have much to agree on.
But what can I do if you guys choose weird hills to die on because you read thing in what I write which are not there?
Please tell me where have I said to not build up tourism elsewhere, just saying thst Nicobar Island is not the best place very different from saying I oppose tourism.
I am also all in favor of public transport and would not be so opposed to the coastal road if we were getting more trains and buses. I dare you to find a single instance I said we should not do tourism at all nor build roads at all.
If you cannot learn to read what I say at least better things to link your honor to than a tourist project you will probably only visit once in your life.
same illogic as demanding IPL team should be in Patna for ‘more people to benefit’.
There is a reason why IPL teams are based in larger cities, and places like Patna and Jamshedpur get “fan zone parks”. Its not elitism, but economic incentives at work.
Capital chases profits, its obviously more profitable to invest in greenfield projects that will attract luxury tourism dollars than to ‘build more amenities’ that serve maximum ‘poor people’. As a nation, you need both kinds of projects. To make it an either/or, is sheer stupidity.
Your logic would work if the investment in this is put in goa, kerala, and other places on our coast where a large number of Indians go to vacation to begin with and infra is already there.
Sri Vijaya or Lakshwadeep are the greenfield project in this case, whereas Nicobar is the hinterland that has been forgotten and is in the middle of nowhere.
Please read what you have writren again and again, which is more profitable, making luxury tourism in places with infrastructure that are easier to travel to and not close to geopolitical hotspots where if the port does not take off, the tourism project will be a massive status symbol or an island in at the edge of the country that is a geopolitical tinderbox where literally all infrastructure needs to be built from scratch.
No matter how much you argue otherwise even the arguments you give support building place with tourist infrastructure, where incentives are already there than a new project that entirely. Thanks for proving my point for me.
why is coastal road being built in Bombay?
why is tourism development ‘allowed’ in Nicobar?
Any other anti-development questions?
Why is coastal road being built in mumbai without increasing the number of buses and trains at the same time?
Why is the Nicobar being chosen when there are mufh better places notably the Andamans?
These are not anti development questions but asking who is being prioritised with these choices?
But if you have linked your honor to these projects and want to read things that are not there so that you dont have to consider what is being questioned, it is not my fault.
Please link your honor to better things if you cannot learn to read.
Of the 150,000 crores that has been sanctioned for Mumbai Metro under NDA central government 80,000 crores has already been spent.
The cost of coastal road is 15000 crores, that is a 10X difference in money for coastal road and mumbai metro.
16400 crores were alocated just last year to upgrade Mumbai’s suburban railway lines, and ~26000 crores were to be spent on AC suburban rakes.
I think you are …
The metro does not justify the coastal road spending if it ignores, buses and trains.
Anyways if money has been sanctioned and it results in more buses and trains on the road and rail it is good. I do wish the coastal road was made after these two things had already been upgraded.
You could have done this before instead of thinking I am some luddite.
Just last week : 6500 crores to be spent to buy 5000 AC buses for BEST.
Good I am glad to hear this, thanks for telling me.
Build the damn road, Mumbai is un-liveable and awful poor value for money. Also, dig an ocean next to Bangalore and build a coastal road there as well.
Honestly, I am just a bit surprised at the kinds of projects coming up around Vasai-Virar, Thane, Dombivli, Kalyan, Bhiwandi, and even Palghar because Mumbai is crazy unaffordable. Some of these amazing towers don’t even have 24 hours of electricity and water.
Someone is really triggered for some reason.
Mumbai is great value for money, with the exception of buying a house everything else is quite cheap over there.
lol
I wouldn’t feel too bad for having little Odia representation at the top of Indian politics. There hasn’t been a single maharashtrian PM in India despite being the largest state in terms of tax collection.
Maharashtra always has someone in: Multiple Patils, have made it, Chavan laid the foundation stone of Bangladesh, Gadkari now. Fadnavis still has a shot, but Shah is the favorite. I don’t think a North Indian should become the Defence minister or Prime minister : no strategic culture, and deeply flawed land-power bias. India’s backyard is Pakistan and China, store-front is the peninsula. North Indians will never see it that way. See the excitement Modi has for ports.
I……don’t buy this hagiographic narrative about the BJP. As they have expanded and acquired power, their ‘big tent’ has assimilated – willingly – many a corrupt polititican and ‘rentiers’ etc.
Agreed. When BJP eventually splinters because of this, the factions would all have trained from the masters in electoral strategy.
I don’t see a way out of the contradictions this reveals for the Indian State, regardless of whether it succeeds in shutting this specific movement down, unless it rejects the logic of liberal democracy.
Why do they need to shut this movement down?
What is the dilemma here exactly thst needs us to abandon the logic of liberal democracy.
Why is a ‘way out’ needed? Such protests have their own ‘natural’ life cycle. They start off in a blaze of righteous fury, and then get co-opted by political grifters, who then typically cause ‘overreach’ and an eventual fizzle out. Occasionally, an individual or 2 is enterprising enough to successfully surf the temporary wave, into a long term political career.
Dipke seems to be more switched on.
I do think the BJP should have been more responsive; there is nothing wrong with protest movements correcting government excess.
What I find interesting is how incompetent Raga is; he could easily be the Modi of the Left.
But you are right; something is missing there entirely.
What all this shows is the Modi is a generational PM; Vajpayee, Rajiv, Indira, Jawarhlal Nehru.
I am beginning to notice India responds to generational leaders.
Modi is incorruptible and sincere, that much is obvious, (I imagine he is geniunely austere in his private life) but how can Raga not have the same discipline?
You’ve made the same incorrect assumption that Raga made. That there is space on the left wing socially. India remains a largely traditional society, if you are not willing to at least play to the sentiments of those traditions you will fail. The only possible competition to Modi can be from the right not from the left.
I feel Raga could be the centre but there is a fundamental laziness to him..
He’s clumsily looking to find the quickest way back to the…Kursi. The willingness to shed and switch ideological skins has been on display for quite some time.
The problem for him is that he’s not politically smart enough to sift through the ‘advice’ that comes his way from ‘consultants’. Drinking the LeLi koolaid because its fashionable in the ‘foreign papers’ could have worked a couple of generations ago, but not in this day and age.
Ironically, if instead of chasing after ill-fated divisive political rhetoric and tactics, if he had buckled down and done even a half-ass decent job at competing with the incumbent admin on development, the winds of anti-incumbency would have delivered a lot more success to him by now.
He was protesting against paper leaks long before the CJP. The congress party even got hit by water cannons.
Why you dont kjow about this is mostly due to the media ignoring this, the congress not being able to highlight it and a residue of the pappy narrative still being there.
He is doing work but unless the media( either his or someone elses) highlights it, it will feel like nothing is happening.
awww, I’m sorry I criticized the ‘handsome’ boi.
Do you think Rahul Gandhi making silly reels demanding a revolution and regime change are …tolerable from the leader of an opposition?
//awww, I’m sorry I criticized the ‘handsome’ boi.//
I was not even thinking of you when I wrote that, why do you think you are on my mind ? I dont feel comfortable with this knowledge.
//Do you think Rahul Gandhi making silly reels demanding a revolution and regime change are …tolerable from the leader of an opposition?//
When has he demanded a revolution and a regime change? Wait do you think asking people to reject the modi govt because of XYZ issue is regime change and revolution. That is standard political rhetoric used by even your favorite party. What a failure in reading comprehension.
RaGa’s rhetorical choices are predictable. He correctly responds to incentives – paying lip service and name-checking the woko haram talking points got him favorable global media coverage, and possibly some funding support as well. Why wouldn’t he go all in on something that is showing him tangible results?
We know that India holds a sizeable number of jholawala Lelis – a politician with limited savvy would easily be convinced into believing that catering to that section is a ‘winning strategy’. That’s the most hilarious part of this all – RaGa probably on some level is stooopid enough to believe that the ‘election was stolen’ from him.
//What I find interesting is how incompetent Raga is; he could easily be the Modi of the Left.//
Rahul.gandhi still has ways to go to overcome the pappu tag that has been attached to him. He also needs to focus on building his party on the ground and get better advisors but he is relatively young for Indian politics and at least by 2029, much of the media landscape that is against him will lose credibility so if he continues working he should gain a good reputation among the non bjp voters at least.
//Modi is incorruptible and sincere, that much is obvious, (I imagine he is geniunely austere in his private life) but how can Raga not have the same discipline?//
A person who uses his post to gather money for a fund from even govt employees and removes it from RTI scrutiny is not incorruptible
A person who turns our entire policy and large sections of media into his personal PR is not austere.
paging Brother Calvin. Please to be sharing your …vishesh tippani on XTM’s characterization of the Moooodi.
I dont think about how to make a particular party look good all the time while hiding behind neutrality. I dont care that people like modi while not thinking Rahul is comparable to him.
My identity is not linked to protecting a person honor like the many of the voters of the party you vote for.
Now other than putting caricatures to my arguments you are projecting your personality on me as well.
Man looks like I really hit a nerve. If this is supposed to be funny, please try again.
Few folks will remember ‘street protests’ in gujarat a few years ago. Also had a ‘youthful’ leader who was hyped as challenging the BJP. Dude had his 5 minutes of political fame, then ‘allied’ with the congress, and was last seen in a ‘leaked’ video with a paid sex worker and then disappeared.
Him and Kejriwal are the 2 ends of the spectrum. Dipke will inevitably fall somewhere in there. Time will tell.
I think one thing that needs to be mentioned is that the PM should be commended for learning the right lessons from Nepal and Bangladesh student protests.
It takes courage to admit you are going on the wrong approach especially being surrounded by people who no doubt keep on berating and delegetimizing the protests against you as some sort of conspiracy.
I only hope that he remember that had he spoken to protestors in the first place, instead of ignoring then delegitimizing, then individually taking the leaders of the protest away from the site, and barricading the protest in the hope of getting footage of them being violent, to delegetimize them only to have the violence wrought on them be broadcast all over the world leading to more support, he would still have an education minister, education secretary and not have exposed something simple to his followers that others have caught onto.
I hope in the future his govt keeps on learning the right lessons from Nepal and Bangladesh and prioritize dialogue, instead of delegetimization since 99% of all protestors can have their demands scaled down by talking to them, in the beginning and only 1% will need more sensitivity and discussion either due to the protestors being desperate and feeling like they are fighting for their lives, or the protestors being paid which a discussion csn bring out and help to delegetimize.
There are just two more things that I feel the need to add on this whole topic:
1) The protest was not against paper leaked but lacking accountability in the system towards them, getting Pradhan to resign is to demonstrate that accountability when sought can be extracted and this is necessary. ( More on this below)
2. Let me explain something by comparing the structure of Democracy to a company
In a company called Democracy Inc, let’s say there are 10 candidates for a CEO position. 37% of shareholders along with 6% who are their allies decide on a candidate among the 10, the remaining 56% preferred candidates lose.
Since the CEO is using everyone’s money, they are accountable to everyone. A scenario where 37% of people who are in favor of CEO are engaged and made to oppose or treat every request or demand as an attack or a conspiracy to bring down the company, all so that the CEO does not look weak,is not only a disservice to the trust and stake the 53% ( and the 6% who may not be entirely aligned with the CEO) put but also puts the lon term future of the company at stake
It is even worse when the CEOs own actions when the 53% raise their voice with ferocity show that they themselves dont believe much of negativity towards his detractors.
A similar scene as above plays out everything where unfounded, nasty and frankly dismissive propaganda is directed towards the people who go against thr party in power almost as a reflex, as a way to avoid accountability and paint the very act as some affront to the pride.
If the engagement of the protestoes after calling the media calls then a mob, or accuses them of beint useful idiots for some nebulous foreign agenda (that only ever show up on our credibility lacking media), shows anything it is that the govt does not really believe anything that it directs its cronies and that many here believed and reproduced without question.
No discussion can take place when protests, whifh are our only way to get the govt to move( as the seriousness towards prosecuting the leaders of NEET 2026 shows) are delegetimized.
Please try to verify things by looking at bit deeper and dont become pawns in firefighting for the govts sake.
>unfounded, nasty and frankly dismissive propaganda is directed towards the people who go against
……not unlike the obscene chants against Modi, his mother, etc etc that were intentionally astro-turfed on social media? 🙂
Its…..yawningly typical for partisan warriors to fixate on the “excesses” of the enemy, while glossing over the excesses of ‘their guys’.
//Its…..yawningly typical for partisan warriors to fixate on the “excesses” of the enemy, while glossing over the excesses of ‘their guys’.//
You know this is an apt description of your own arguments over the last few days on this site. Same with many others as well.
Still going to act like you dont love some people more than you let on.
//not unlike the obscene chants against Modi, his mother, etc etc that were intentionally astro-turfed on social media? //
Nothing of the sort was said on the dais. In a larger protest, people from all walks of life will come and say whatever they want when asked. There are many reasonable people whose viewpoints never reach you because of the media you seem to engage in.
There are multiple videos of many leaders of the ruling party saying nasty things about religious communities India,many journalists insulting Rahul Gandhis mother, some even insulting people on tv for not voting for the bjp,one leader even tried to cat call Mamta Banerjee. So please have a look at your own partisanship.
‘your’ innocent protesters. ‘their’ evil poolis.
🙂
I never said the police is evil. But unlike you I can direct the blame for their actions rightfully on their bosses.
Again you are trying to forcefit what I am saying in an argument you can mentally dismiss. Please read one word at a time if needed
Do you want me to stop reminding you how the people on whose behalf you wete fire fighting abandoned the very narratives they fed to you? Will that help?
you were out here criticizing the police repeatedly, while glossing over, justifying, and condoning mob violence. Now suddenly you wish to forget you ever did that.
https://www.news18.com/india/nearly-3000-people-with-criminal-records-participated-in-cjp-protest-delhi-police-sources-10236489.html
Looks like the police was spot on.
//you were out here criticizing the police repeatedly, while glossing over, justifying, and condoning mob violence. //
I was criticising the use of pellet guns, tear gas shells and lathi charging that havr led to people being hospitalized while you can’t even raise a question on the people who put the police in the situation when they could have defused it by talking with the protestors.
I did not know at the time that you guys read things that ate not there in what I write so you can dismiss what I say baded on a caricature you created in your heads I should have beem more clear about who I knew was the responsible party my bad for not making things easy to read.
https://x.com/wokeflix/status/2081268550468342221
An actual student protester calls out the political grift in the Delhi ‘protests’.
I dont use twitter, ( value my sanity too much)so audio cant be played on my phone .
I have seen some tweets on this channels though, why are students who come a clearly anti protestor channel actual students but the students who were at the protest site, giving their viewpoint for why they wete there and the media thst reports on it, not ‘actual’ students. Very partisan as usual.
It seems that even after the ruling party proved that all the negative propaganda against the students was bunkum with no substance behind them some people still cant understand basic things about thr media they consume and the narratives spread on thst media.
oh well. Use that excuse not to engage with the point. Your prerogative. It takes 5 seconds to sign up with a junk email id.
But why bother, when you can’t counter an actual student protester and his damning views directly counter your preferred diet of political propaganda.
//oh well. Use that excuse not to engage with the point. Your prerogative. It takes 5 seconds to sign up with a junk email id.//
I dont want to give my data to a nazi platform
Least of all for a person whose best argument is
” Similar to leli caricature 1890.DISMISS.DISMISS”
I have been giving points all this time, all you guys have given are conspiracy theories on how the protest is paid or funded by xyz dubious force. This govt disproved the first time the govt reached out and is even more disproved now thst the demands have been met.
If you can spend time pontification on others being useful idiots, show some charity to yourself as well.
See India is only supposed to follow NGO gobbledygook about corporate governance like above. It is not supposed to follow what actual tech companies do like Correction of Errors template and the 5- why’s technique to fix root causes.
I never said that again you are putting words in my mouth.
I have already outlined what my thoughts are multiple times.
At this point, please try to stop being so suspicious for people who dont care about narratives they spread in the first place
We should talk to every citizen who raises a point, you dont need to listen and follow what they say if you dont like it. This is basic common sense that if you guys did not have such hostility towards Indian citizens who disagree with you, would uncontroversial.
This was published in DAWN today (By arrangement with “The Wire”):
” Region: India’s Student Reckoning”
By Revati Laul
https://www.dawn.com/news/2018187/region-indias-student-reckoning
Populist movements are rarely capable of analyzing structures, identifying their core flaws, and debating the pros and cons of solutions. By definition and by necessity, the “thinking” is shallow, the logic sophomoric; the solutions proposed are targeted at symptoms, and more “feel good” than “effective”. This is why all populist movements in the West end up blaming immigration for all and sundry.
What kind of “redistributive settlement” are you advocating? What problem would it address, and would it solve it or just paper over it?
This protest movement was about establishing accountability not proposing or debating solutions.
That can only happen in spaces geared towards discussion where ideas can be heard , understood and discussed either a space like this, a debate club or the like. The CJP may work to create spaces like this in the future or may not, but that is not something this protest ever intended to do.
Given that majoroty of the paper leaks, have seen stalled investigations and personnel problems still persist across many depts thst conduct exams including the NTA, discussion without the means to put pressure to on the govt to actually do this. This protest was to regain this space for putting pressure in case of future failures.
Expecting the protestors to be discussing this and not our media or govt, is a bit silly.
“redistributive settlement” is the new buzzword.
Yes it means, take the money from the people who buzz around the world in airplanes, live in fancy hotels, eat nice food and attend top universities, and send them to serve in Dimapur. Off to ISBT for the Nagaland State Transport Bus in Guwahati now…
1)where were ABVP and youth wing of BJP. abvp cannot boast of its growth, as it piggy backs bjp rule.
2)rss?
3) the rigid high command system modi and shah have brought has stifled all independent initiatives from the ranks below.
the anger in vocal bjp supporters is palpable. one guy in a sarcastic comment said that ” we are with modi, but is modi with us” ?
just like the almost withdrawal of ugc act, the govt has to do some thing big to assuage this crowd.
Most bjp supporters also did not like Pradhan. Why is it thet they are so unhappy that a minster they dont like went away because the people who did not vote for the party in power, or those who did, but raised this demand through protest won?
Why do they look at the political protests of their fellow citizens as some sort of conspiracy?
This incident should open their eyes that many of the nasty things said about those eho protest are bunkum and just meant to rile up people against other citizens.
To answer the sarcastic comment, no the creators themselves dont care about the narratives they spread if they fail at a massive level amongst fence sitters.
why is it that you prefer to tar opposing/differing perspectives with a “BJP supporter” brush?
I personally ..simply DGAF about Pradhan. My focus is on outcomes. I am not against education reform, and I think Pradhan staying or resigning, has little to no effect on that outcome.
My view is that the protests motivations and objectives were more about politics than about actual education reform. And this leads to be deeply skeptical about their leadership and the antics and stunts they pulled.
//why is it that you prefer to tar opposing/differing perspectives with a “BJP supporter” brush?//
Because most of the differing perspectives on the protests at least are the same that have always been used by pro govt media and their supporters to delegetimize every protests against them no matter what it is being raised for. I have not used this framing for any other disagreements.
You dont care about Pradhan, why then is a protest that is primarily asking for his resignation getting so much suspicions? There is no document from the home ministry to justify dubious funding, no proof opposition parties were involved in this and definitely no proof that these are being paid by anyone? You can choose to learn what the protestoes are fighting for and what they think of by either going to a nearest protest in your city or seeing reels from on the ground for multiple perspectives but instead perspective supporting one party are given forward as fact
If the supporters of one party have a history of throwing hostile and accusatory remarks to anything that challenges that party, often time with no proof, and in cases like this showing the whole narratives was completely bunkum why would I not call it as it is.
It is also clear that being a supporter of a party is why many dont questions the govt that never believed its own delegetimzation ( something a person sitting in uk can see)or not caring about the much more concerning actions of delhi police
//My view is that the protests motivations and objectives were more about politics than about actual education reform. And this leads to be deeply skeptical about their leadership and the antics and stunts they pulled.//
When a paper leaks due to faults in our govt, the protests and discussions on it ate political by nature.
I have explained many time what thr aim was by asking for DP resignation, and why this was felt necessary.
I dont care that you are skeptical of the CJP. But given how much of this skepticism was initially created and amplified by the party in power to delegetimize the protest( something that even someone from UK can see) should you not at least be a little skeptical of the motives and antics of the party in powet as well?
Brother Calvin, I’m not from the ‘UK’.
Yeah you are from India but yiu can’t see basic things that XTM sitting in UK can easily see.
He uses the same twitter as you but rather than going through the 100s of channels that purposely mischaracteruze others for delegetimization he actually engages with people who are not his fellow citizens on their own terms.
I dont know what made you think I was talking about you, maybe I should be more clear since you seem to think I am thinking about you more than I really am.
there you go again, making assumptions about me, what content I consume etc etc.
And in the next breath you will whine about being caricatured. 🙂
I dont care about being caricatured by you guys, it just shows that instead of arguing what I say, you find it easier to fit me in a category and dismiss what I say with a category error.
It is very clear that you still are more concerned about the intentioons of the protestors and their politics rather than the party that instigated you and made you suspicious to them in the first place. It is very clear what kind of content is making you suspicious towards them and their intentions in the first place as well.
I cant help it if you being in India, cant see that you were being played that someone in the UK like XTM can see easily.
The fact that you discard facts when they don’t agree with your narratives is really funny while you accuse someone else of caricaturing you.
//Police are investigating whether these men were involved in violence that broke out at Jantar Mantar, in and around New Delhi.//
It is funny you ignore things right in front of you to accuse others of some bias. If the police are themselves not sure if these people were protestors then why are you so sure?
An allegation is not proof, something very basic that you seem to not grasp.
Please read better.
That applies equally to the protestors accusing the police of excessive force. If like 1/2-1/4 of your protesters are criminals your credibility should be lowered.
There is video proof of police using water cannons and throwing tear gas sheels as well as the RAF shooting with pellet guns. Not a single word said about this, or the 90 people seriously injured by the police, till now.
And who said that 1/2 or 1/4 of the protestors are criminal? There were over 2.5 lakh people there, no way that the delhi police is claiming that over 1 lakh were criminals.
it still needs to prove the case but the numbe reaches close to 2500, no where near the numbers you are quoting, and why do you assume they were not there to look for vicitms amongst the protestors if they were sexual assaulters or had POSCO charges against them, it is so difficult to fathom that even the protestors could be victims?
I am sad that the protestors and the police were forced in this situation because someone did not want to talk to begin with, you clearly seem to be unable to speak against these people and are going deeper and deeper into your hostility to avoid doing so, I mean, you still going to argue that I am wrong when I say you guys are making unfounded accusations towards others just because they questioned your favorite people( who are definitely not the delhi police)
There was at a maximum around 10,000 unique people present at the protests in Delhi.
The maximum people who marched to the parliament were at least a lakh. Some sources quoting upto 2 lakh as well.
The pictures itself circulating around show more than 10000 individuals easily.
Also it is striking that on hearing that people who maybe child predators or involved in sexual assault, your first thought is not that these men could be fishing for their next victims, amongst the numerous young people there but that these people are protestors?
I know you dont like people who protest against your favorite party and dont care about the violence inflicted on them but this is very low, as far as wishing the worst of your enemys is concerned.
If the police did facial recognition and could identify these individuals why not remove them by naming and shaming, not like the CJP is against people being prosecuted for violence they may have done.
You are giving a lot of leeway to a large enough portion of people that were attending the protest. You wouldn’t extend the same leeway to the cops.
Most of the cops were doing the jobs, a job that the very people who instigated you to hate your fellow citizens and then abandoned that narrative, forced them in a position to do so. Whatever scorn the cops may recieve, more deserves to be given to their bosse Unfortunately your love for their bosses is more than any sympathy given to the cops. I understand that many of the police probably did not enjoy what they had to do and continue to have to do.
And how do you know they were there to protest and not find their next victim, this is beyond hostility and suspicion and going towards hatred territory, why do you assume the worst about others who just demanded accountability, why does your love for a party make your hatred towards those who question them so strong?
Please self reflect, you should not be so unwilling to see other people as normal human beings.
Pointless moralizing over topics you will switch your opinions over when they don’t support your bosses.
I dont have bosses.
My honor is not Linked Dipke, Rahul,modi, kejriwal or even Prashant Kishor.
If you cant fathom making an argument that does not in involve saving some one else honor because of a paradoxical relationship you have with them that’s on you. Dont project your own characteristics onto me.
Another perspective of per capita gdp growth in India relative to other countries over the decades.
https://x.com/siddharth_iitm/status/2081308477847445653
that’s been amazing. there is no doubt the Modi & BJP have been fantastic for economic growth.
my only concern is equity; how do we maintain 10% annual growth with a corresponding increase in HDI.
also I have no issue with Privilege; but it must be accompanied by noblesse obligee.
That’s an on-going challenge. And agree that its something that GoI needs to be held accountable on.
On the flip side, we have a multi-decade historical track record that shows that Indian democracy has repeatedly allowed slogans of inequity to be deployed against economic development and growth. This is also something to be guarded against.
can CJP leadership evade its responsibility and wash their hands off the violence and anarchy seen in the protest. their accountability or lack of it will certainly be questioned.
The leadership already washed its hands of all that when they shook hands with JP Nadda. Now the govt will take their time prosecuting the elements which were identified.
The CJP does seem to intend to prosecute the Delhi police officers who acted violently while not seeming to step in, in cases where protestors were genuinely guilty.
There was no anarchy unless you are counting a police attacking the citizens that pay their salaries as such.
The Cockroach Janta party is opposing supreme court’s ruling. they will now understand as to how the system works. a contempt petition might also be filed. if the protest starts again govt. will be forced to come hard on them.
Read more at:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/132687788.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst
interesting article as to what rss is trying to tell bjp. from print…
https://theprint.in/politics/what-senior-rss-bjp-leaders-may-be-trying-to-convey-to-bjp-through-their-remarks-on-youth-protests/2999903/