Should Donald Trump be granted immunity from prosecution till the US presidential election is over? Should elections in the UK be postponed till such a time as the Tory party is once again electable? The Guardian must think so. Otherwise, why does it say India's elections are fraudulent because it is clear the BJP will win, just as it is clear that Labor will win the upcoming British elections? I suppose the answer is that the Guardian is racist. Indians are brown. If they have a candidate who is half-European, they must vote for that candidate. To do otherwise is to betray democracy.
The world’s largest elections begin this weekend in India, amid claims that the race to lead the country has already been won.
Just as the Tories have already lost the UK elections due later this year.
If Narendra Modi were to secure a third term with a big parliamentary majority, his achievement would match that of the country’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.
Like whom, he has no serious rival. But Modi has no son or daughter. He can't found a dynasty as Nehru did.
Whatever the outcome, the loser has been Indian democracy.
Because Indian democracy should only do what the Guardian wants it to do.
Unlike Mr Nehru, who anonymously criticised his own leadership,
he said he was a Dictator. That was because, back in the Thirties, Dictators were cool. Congress retaliated by declaring the Mahamtma the 'Fuhere and Il Duce of India'.
Mr Modi has little time for his opponents.
He has plenty of time for Nitish Kumar who was an opponent till recently. Nehru had no time for Jinnah. Maulana Azad said that Nehru refused to appoint Muslims or Parsis to Premierships in the Provinces. Nehru presided over the biggest ethnic cleansing of Muslims in history.
Democracies run best when there is a contest of ideas and equal treatment of citizens in everyday administration.
No. Democracies run best when they guys running the country are smart and do sensible things. This is also true of Dictatorships and Monarchies. America in the Fifties persecuted Communists and mistreated Blacks and Hispanics. But it did sensible things and was much much better off than it ever had been before. But this was also true of Britain where as the Tory PM said people 'never had it so good'.
These are in short supply in Modi’s India.
Because Rahul is a moon-calf. The Guardian does not understand that Dynasticism is antithetical to Democracy.
The main opposition Congress party found its bank accounts frozen.
Because its Treasurer didn't file a fucking Income Tax return! That's what happens when an incompetent cretin runs a National Party just because his daddy and granny and great-grandfather ran it. Those accounts were unfrozen quickly enough.
It can’t be a coincidence that all the leading Indian politicians arrested by enforcement and tax authorities belong to the opposition and none to the ruling party.
It can't be a coincidence that Congress lost so badly because it was extremely corrupt. Nor can it be a coincidence that Congress lost Delhi and Punjab to Arvind Kejriwal- an anti-corruption campaigner who is now on remand because of his own corruption- or that in Karnataka a BJP supported administration was booted out because of perceived corruption. Maybe, the BJP is better at picking clean candidates. The more likely explanation is that officials in the enforcement agencies go after opposition party members because they fear that the BJP will still be in power when their own applications for extension of service come up.
Weaponising India’s prosecutorial apparatus seems unnecessary,
It hasn't been done. We know that officials want to ingratiate themselves with whomever is likely to be in power when they are due to retire and want an extension or else a post-retirement sinecure.
as Mr Modi can massively outspend his rivals. Since 2018, Mr Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party has received about £1.25bn from wealthy donors, more than all other political parties combined.
But Modi himself isn't rich. Plenty of opposition leaders are billionaires. Moreover, 'wealthy donors' have an incentive to promote the Party which will manage the economy better. Currently, that is the BJP.
One is tempted to ask whether Mr Modi needs elections that inevitably invite repudiation.
Only if one is tempted to ask whether Rishi Sunak needs election. Why does he not simply usurp the throne instead? The fact is Modi is law abiding. He won't suspend the Constitution like Indira Gandhi.
After 10 years in power, voters may be in a mood to surprise him.
But Rahul remains the alternative.
Polls suggest that Indians are most worried about unemployment, inflation and income insecurity.
They also suggest that Modi has the highest approval rating of any elected leader in the world.
On these issues, Mr Modi has a poor record,
only because everybody has a poor record on this. Which opposition ruled state is doing better than a comparable BJP ruled state? None at all.
which is a bruise that the opposition keeps punching.
But they have the worse problems in the states they themselves rule. The fact is the Opposition is on the back foot. Prashant Kishore, the smartest political analyst India has, reckons Modi is going to take votes from the Opposition in the South and East.
Most voters say corruption has got worse under Mr Modi’s rule.
In opposition states- sure. Look at Kejriwal's Delhi!
Unsurprising perhaps, as recent economic growth so disproportionately benefits the rich that India is more unequal today than under colonial rule.
Nonsense! Back then there were Maharajas and Nizams and Zamindars. There were also big famines and lots of 'bonded labor' slaves. Economic growth benefits those rich people who are creating that growth. Modi's Vivksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra is there to help those left behind.
Holding elections burnishes India’s reputation as “the world’s largest democracy”, in contrast to China.
No. Holding free and fair elections is required by Indian Law which is overseen by a wholly independent Supreme Court.
More importantly, Mr Modi needs a popular mandate to legitimise his rule.
So has every Indian leader since 1946.
Populist leaders run the risk of losing power to prevail over unelected institutions that uphold the rule of law.
Modi hasn't tried to challenge the Supreme Court. Indira did.
Resistance to Mr Modi is a dangerous business.
Nope. It is a safe and profitable business. Suppose you are stuck teaching in a rural Haryana. Pretend you have attacked Modi and that your bosses want you to resign. This could get you a nice sinecure on an Ivy league campus. That's the path Pratap Bhanu Mehta took.
He has used his election victories to characterise opposition to his bulldozing of constitutional rights as acts of an enemy within.
No he hasn't. The Supreme Court protects constitutional rights. Kejriwal will get relief from the Bench just as many others have done. Nehru and Indira slaughtered plenty of 'enemies within'. Modi hasn't faced any serious insurgency or terrorism threat. J&K is peaceful. True, there is a problem in the North East. The fall out from Myanmar's civil war will continue to imperil that region. But that is a localized phenomenon.
Modern India has never defined its identity in terms of religion or ethnicity.
It did so in 1946. Hindus voted overwhelmingly for Congress. Muslims voted overwhelmingly for the League. The country was divided. India was Hindu- save in some border states- and Hindu it remains.
Most Indians are classed as Hindu, but the country is home to 200 million Muslims.
Who were taught a lesson by Nehru who took away their reserved seats. Ambedkar stripped Muslim Dalits of affirmative action. At a later point, they could be a junior partner in particular caste-based regimes. But that trend has reversed.
Hindu nationalists – such as Mr Modi – seek primacy for fellow adherents.
Nehru got it for them long ago. That is why his Dynasty lasted so long.
That is why vigilante groups associated with the ruling party violently police society at the grassroots level with impunity.
No they don't. Mamta's Bengal and Vijayan's Kerala and Stalin's TN may have lots of goons. But Modi is not interested in gangsterism.
If Mr Modi were to lose power, these organisations would make any return to the status quo ante very difficult.
What status quo ante? Sonia appointing some geriatric to pretend to run the country while she and her chums loot it?
Only a mass movement, writes Christophe Jaffrelot of King’s College London in his book Gujarat Under Modi, could counter a vigilantism that forms a “state deeper than the official one”.
Modi was part of the mass movement- Nav Nirman- which ended Congress's grip on Gujarat. Jaffrelot has been repeating the same stupid shite for decades now. Fuck does he know about India?
That is not as unlikely as it sounds.
These nutters don't understand that Dalits and Tribals are Hindus. They hate Muslims for good reasons. They aren't going to suddenly ally with the homosexuals, the transvestites, the Muslims, the Dravidians, the Reds, the Greens, the Disabled and the victims of Neo-Liberal sexual self-abuse, to form a rainbow coalition to put an end to the evil colonial rule of Nicholas Maugham (which is the real name of Narendra Modi)
Mr Modi is not popular in southern India,
He is. But his party gets few seats. Prakash Kishore thinks the BJP may get to double digits in T.N.
where there has been a political mobilisation around regional cultural identity that challenges Hinduism’s hierarchies.
In TN there is anti-Brahminism- but only against Tamil Brahmins. Stalin calls Rahul, a janeodhari Brhamin, 'Sir'. Andhra and Telengana have no such thing. Nor does Karnataka or Kerala.
The upshot, particularly in Tamil Nadu, has been more effective institutions and better outcomes on health, education and poverty reduction, as well as more economic dynamism.
Jayalalitha was a Brahmin. The key is to raise the female participation rate. Everything follows from that.
To obscure the lack of progress in its populous northern strongholds, Mr Modi’s party militantly asserts Hinduism.
No. It militantly asserts 'Hindutva'- i.e. Hinduism without hereditary castes or entitlements- like that of Rahul.
One of its opponents in north India, Arvind Kejriwal, attempted to emulate the southern model in the nation’s capital, Delhi.
No. He began as an 'apolitical' anti-corruption campaigner. Then he got careless. His fingerprints are all over the Liquor scam. Still, the Supreme Court will give him relief. The question is whether he can deliver on his promises re. better Government schools and Government hospitals. The problem here is that his comrades may have gotten greedy.
He was arrested last month.
Because he was stupid enough not to prepare some scapegoats in advance. He should have cooperated with the ED. They would have been happy with a nice neat case which would hold up in court.
Indian voters might see that as a sign of Mr Modi’s insecurity rather than his confidence.
They are laughing heartily at an anti-corruption campaigner who was too stupid to do what everybody else does- viz. hand over some scapegoats- so as to stay in the clear.
He has much to be insecure about.
Don't be silly. He knows he will win. So does everybody else. Congress needed to come up with an alternative candidate. It was supposed to be Gehlot, then CM of Rajasthan. But Gehlot refused to budge and has now lost Rajasthan as well. Hopefully, Rahul will quit politics if he loses in Wayanad to Annie Raja of the Communist party. That way, in 2029, the Opposition will have a credible candidate. Till then, the Guardian will continue to pretend that Modi is Hitler.
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