by Summary:
This March, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won regional elections in four out of five states, including Uttar Pradesh (UP). This huge prize represents a qualitative advance for the party and the Hindu nationalist Sangh Parivar it represents, giving greater legitimacy to their long-term goal of establishing a Hindu state in all but name. Is India ceasing to be an outpost of liberal democracy and moving in the direction of theocratic nationalism? Something to keep an eye on.But economics is fundamental, and here Prime Minister Modi is a neoliberal. The Modi regime’s greatest weakness comes from its economic failures. For example, the demonetization scheme represented a massive failure. Modi designed his program to attack the black economy’s cash flow, but the most important component of
Topics:
Mike Norman considers the following as important: Bharatiya Janata Party, BJP, Hindutva, India, Narendra Modi
This could be interesting, too:
This March, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won regional elections in four out of five states, including Uttar Pradesh (UP). This huge prize represents a qualitative advance for the party and the Hindu nationalist Sangh Parivar it represents, giving greater legitimacy to their long-term goal of establishing a Hindu state in all but name. Is India ceasing to be an outpost of liberal democracy and moving in the direction of theocratic nationalism? Something to keep an eye on.But economics is fundamental, and here Prime Minister Modi is a neoliberal. The Modi regime’s greatest weakness comes from its economic failures. For example, the demonetization scheme represented a massive failure. Modi designed his program to attack the black economy’s cash flow, but the most important component of
Topics:
Mike Norman considers the following as important: Bharatiya Janata Party, BJP, Hindutva, India, Narendra Modi
This could be interesting, too:
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This March, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won regional elections in four out of five states, including Uttar Pradesh (UP). This huge prize represents a qualitative advance for the party and the Hindu nationalist Sangh Parivar it represents, giving greater legitimacy to their long-term goal of establishing a Hindu state in all but name.Is India ceasing to be an outpost of liberal democracy and moving in the direction of theocratic nationalism? Something to keep an eye on.
But economics is fundamental, and here Prime Minister Modi is a neoliberal.
The Modi regime’s greatest weakness comes from its economic failures. For example, the demonetization scheme represented a massive failure. Modi designed his program to attack the black economy’s cash flow, but the most important component of the informal economy is the stock of wealth held in immovable assets or stashed abroad. The government promised that the program’s success would make up for the short-term disruption to the most vulnerable people, but most of the old notes have returned to the formal banking sector. This means that the elites, who hoarded wads of cash, have converted their wealth into legitimate bank holdings that they can now earn interest on. The scheme’s mismanagement has helped lower average growth rates over the last two years. Modi’s promise of greater prosperity for the vast majority has not and will not be fulfilled.
His greatest failure, however, is a structural one, embedded in his economic policies of neoliberalism: neither he nor his government can ever provide enough good-paying jobs for the nation. The already poor and precarious will face increasing deprivation, and lower middle-class youth will watch their opportunities fade away.
India is in considerable turmoil as it deals with its relationship with the modern world and how to fit in without losing its "Indian soul."
How these economic frustrations will crystallize politically between now and the next general elections — and what forces will take advantage of them — remains the most important unknown.
Jacobin
Hindutva’s Forward March
Achin Vanaik