Tyler Cowan on Modi

This is what Tyler Cowan thinks we should think of Modi nowadays. Notice, Cowan isn't saying we should view the world according to our rational self-interest nor that we should check the truth value of claims made about Modi. Rather, he thinks we should have an opinion on Modi based of how he is perceived by people with no skin in the game who write for non-Indians.

Ian Bremmer offers one account of all the wrongdoing, which I will not summarize here. In any case, many of you have asked me what I think of these recent events.

Bremmer's narrative is basically 'I was for Modi when he was good for the economy. Then the economy slowed down and he turned ultra- Hindu Nationalist to bolster his poll numbers'. This is very silly. If fucking up Muslims is what gets you elected, that's all you'll do. Why bother with economic growth? Give the people what the want- kill Muslims and you'll have a lock on power.

This is what Bremmer says-

Modi opted to turn to Hindu nationalism to bolster his poll numbers, a decision that helped him perform better than expected in national elections in spring 2019.

This is horseshit. Modi decided to retaliate against Pakistan, with an air strike, after a terrorist incident in the Kashmir Valley. That wasn't 'Hindu Nationalism', it was Indian Nationalism. Killing the enemy after he kills some of your people is considered a good thing. Modi was rewarded for taking a successful risk.

And after securing reelection, Modi continued leaning his shoulder into Hindu nationalism, while neglecting issues like land reform or reducing trade barriers.

After securing reelection, Modi was forced to try to implement the BJPs long standing promises re. citizenship for refugees and the enforcement of the Assam accord which was first promised by the Congress party back in the Eighties. That's the problem with having a majority in both Houses of Parliament. You have to fulfill your manifesto or admit your party has been lying to the public all along. By contrast, Modi has no mandate for 'land reform' (presumably Bremmer means Corporations should be allowed to grab land from all and sundry) or 'reducing trade barriers' (i.e. bankrupting the kirana shops so as to please Costco or Walmart). He must not do things his party promised not to do- viz. sell the country out to greedy Multi Nationals. By contrast, he must try to do the things his party promised to do even if this proves difficult and becomes the focus of black propaganda and stupid agitations.

As that nationalism has taken a more prominent role in government policy, it has begun directly threatening the country’s constitutionally mandated secular democracy. (Secularism in India means the equal treatment of all religions by the state.)

Rubbish! The Opposition may claim this is happening- but it is always claiming this is happening. Why take their word for it?

In August, Modi’s decision to end the special status of Jammu and Kashmir—the country’s lone majority Muslim state—and arrest regional leaders while shutting off the Internet (which recently became the longest internet shutdownin a democracy) grabbed international headlines.

The Kashmir Valley is Muslim majority- it ethnically cleansed Hindus in the Nineties- but Jammu and Ladhakh aren't. Quite properly the latter has been split off and Jammu too may follow suit. The Valley has a terrorist and an insurgency problem which local politicians don't want to see quelled. So the police have their hands tied behind their back. Pakistan is pumping in money to keep stone-pelting and arson on the boil. Thus, to end the bloodshed, the valley needs to be a Union territory where the Police are under the control of the Center. Of course, the same result is achieved just by keeping it under President's rule or putting in a puppet administration- New Delhi's usual tactic in the region.

Modi's action in Kashmir wasn't political- elections are too far away for the thing to be an issue. But it was timely. Pakistan was taken off guard. Its economic woes meant its range of action was limited. So far, Delhi's clampdown seems to be working. Imran Khan may dream of a blood drenched Valley- but casualties have been minimal so far. The question Indians are asking is why was this not done sooner? Why did Delhi waste so much money and time in the Valley? The answer is that corruption was a two way street. It wasn't just the Kashmiri leaders who were lining their pockets.

Then came the decision to implement a National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the state of Assam to identify any residents who arrived in India after Bangladesh’s civil war commenced in 1971.

This is mad. Look at the Wikipedia article. It says 

' In 1983, the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act was passed by the Parliament creating a separate tribunal process for identifying illegal migrants in Assam. 
This was under a Congress Government.
The Supreme Court of India struck it down as unconstitutional in 2005, after which the Government of India agreed to update the Assam NRC.
This too was under a Congress led Government.
Following unsatisfactory progress on the update process over a decade, the Supreme Court started directing and monitoring the process in 2013.
Still under a Congress led Government.
[4] The final updated NRC for Assam, published 31 August 2019, contained 31 million names out of 33 million population, leaving out 1.9 million applicants.[5] The 1.9 million residents who were not on the list, and were in danger of losing their citizenship.[6] Many of those affected were Bengali Hindus, who constitute a major voter base for the BJP. After the completion of the Assam NRC exercise, BJP did not find the results, meeting its expectations. BJP believed that several legitimate citizens were excluded while illegal migrants were included.[7][8] The register was created because "illegal migration from Bangladesh has long been a concern" in Assam. The Amendment of the 1955 Citizenship Act, in part, helps protect non-Muslims who are not in the register and face arrest or deportation.[9]
Unlike Bangladeshi Muslims, non Muslims from that country faced persecution. They are prima facie refugees though they may have to be accommodated in some other state where there is no threat of 'demographic replacement' of indigenous or tribal people. By contrast Bangladeshi Muslims living in India are economic migrants and not entitled to citizenship or domicile.

Nearly 2 million people have lost their citizenship as a result of this new register;

illegal migrants don't have citizenship. You can't lose what you don't have.

of them, 1.2 million were found to be Hindus, which helped prompt the BJP’s efforts to push forward this week’s passage of a law providing a fast-track lane to citizenship to immigrants from neighboring countries—as long as they are not Muslims.

For the excellent reason that only non Muslims are fucked over, purely on religious grounds, in Islamic Republics. It may be that some 'Muslims' e.g Ahmediyas too are persecuted. But they aren't asking to migrate to India. They are asking to be recognized as Muslims and equal citizens of Islamic countries where non-Muslims get short shrift.

For the Muslims who lost citizenship thanks to the NRC, the government is building detention centers to house these newly stateless people. (While the BJP has insisted illegal Muslim immigrants will be deported, Bangladesh is unlikely to accept them.)

Why is it doing so? The answer is that the Indian Government, under Indira Gandhi, promised the Assamese that infiltrators would be repatriated. In exchange, the local people gave up ethnic cleansing of these helpless people. But, Congress dragged its feet on implementing its promise. I don't know whether the BJP will make good on this issue. It too may quietly resile from its stated position when things quieten down. However, the fact is that the demand for this measure comes from the indigenous people of the North East. The rest of India does not greatly care about the issue. We have more in common with a Bengali Muslim than a Christian Naga. Not that the Nagas are in any danger of being swamped by immigrants. They are quite capable of looking after themselves.

Bremmer is not Indian and he does not understand Indian politics. He has got it into his head that there is a 'good' Modi who basically wants the West to rape India, but that there is a 'bad' Modi who wants to fuck over Muslims to get re-elected because the slogan 'Make America Great Again by letting it fuck you in the backside' does not sound too good when translated into Hindi.

Modi seems to figure that once he solidifies his political hold on the country with his emphasis on Hindu nationalism, he will then be able to spur the Indian economy by striking one-on-one free trade deals with countries who don’t find his methods objectionable, the U.S. chief among them.

What a crock of shit! All that matters to Modi is 'solidifying his political hold'. Trade deals are meaningless to him. Perhaps Bremmer is thinking of Bo Jo or Nigel Farage. Its easy to confuse Modi with either of those two Public School educated toffs.

And while a mini-trade deal with a U.S. president desperate for international wins headed into an election year is possible, there’s little chance that a fully-formed free trade agreement (FTA) will be struck between the two sides given India’s well-established history of trade protectionism.

So, Bremmer is telling us that he is talking bollocks. Indians don't want free trade deals. Never have and never will. It is not the case that Modi thinks he needs to fuck up Muslims in order to get an FTA with Trump which will allow American dicks access to Indian assholes. Why not say 'Modi wants the White Man to return to rule over India. That is why he is cracking down on the Muslims- coz Whitey gets all skittish when he see's a burqa. He thinks every elderly Muslim lady is actually a suicide bomber. And if Whitey gets nervous he will lose his hard-on and not be able to fuck poor Indians in the ass. That would be a terrible shame coz True Liberal Democracy- at least, for poor countries populated by Darkies- consists in spreading your cheeks for Wall Street.'

Striking an FTA with Europe was always a long shot; even more so now given these recent developments.

This is lunacy. Everybody knows the Europeans want lower tariffs on cars and car parts. That's not doable for India where the car industry is reeling. 'Recent developments' don't matter at all. This story has been unfolding since 2007. There isn't any great appetite for it in India and the EU, thankfully, is too divided to push harder for it.

And for international investors who had been hoping for a stable investment environment, the waves of unrest caused by this nationalist turn make them even more wary of taking the plunge into India’s market.

International investors have got their fingers burned. So have smart people from India. There has to be a great shake-out before any further 'plunges' into a market where there is little transparency.

While the economy was responsive to Modi’s moves, the Prime Minister was not so drawn to Hindu nationalism.

Modi did not have a majority in the Upper House. However, he was elected, at least partly, because the other parties depicted him as the Hindu Hitler. Modi, a staunch RSS man, has never wavered in his allegiance to Hindu Nationalism. What has changed is his ability to deliver on its core manifesto.

Now that this is no longer the case, he is falling back on identity politics to capture political momentum.

But why do so now when national elections are still far off? It was already obvious that people voted differently in regional elections. Why not sleep peacefully for a couple of years and do all this stuff just before the next general election? The answer is that Modi genuinely wants to improve governance and last mile delivery. Why? When voters get something from the State, they start voting more rationally. They give up on identity politics- i.e. voting your caste and putting some corrupt dynast or criminal in power just coz he has the same last name as you.

The problem is that while this strategy has obvious dividends for him and his BJP party, it is dooming an Indian economy that is already falling behind China’s.

Already falling behind China? That happened decades ago. Is Bremmer related to Rip Van Winkle? Fuck has he been doing all this time?

Investors have long-known China is repressive, but still do business with it given its size, efficiency and predictability (much of that a result of its centralized system of governance). India has the size, but nowhere near the efficiency or predictability. For the last half decade, the hope was India’s move towards openness and inclusivity would provide some of that productivity and reliability.

Openness and accountability means decision processes become lengthier and are subject to multiple types of judicial and administrative review. Whoever was hoping this would not be the case was also hoping they could figure out a way to keep their thumb from repeatedly getting jammed up their own asshole.

With recent anti-Muslim developments over the last few months, that’s a much less realistic bet. India, and Modi in particular, had a window of opportunity to take the bold decisions needed to remake India’s economy competitive for the 21st century. They’re now closing that window, and India is poised to fall even further.

Bremmer had a window of opportunity to say something sensible. It closed and he didn't. Meanwhile India has not been affected at all by what he writes or by the opinions of the shitheads who think he knows about India.

This is equally true of Tyler Cowan who believes Bremmer is an unimpeachable oracle and proceeds to tell us what we ought to think about India coz we're really special little snowflakes and need special education in Economics to take account of our very special needs.

I do not at all favor replacing India’s secular democracy with “Hindu nation” as a ruling principle.

I do not at all favor replacing Tyler Cowan's mouth with his asshole. Sadly, like Cowan with respect to the Indian Constitution, I have no say in the matter.

For one thing, I believe in strong libertarian protections for minority rights against state power, including for Muslims

Cowan believes no such thing. Muslims in America, like Mormons, are banned from polygamous marriage both by State and Federal Law. Even female circumcision was banned by law. An Indian, Bohra Muslim, female Doctor was charged under the 1996 FGM act. It appears she will get off after a Judge found the law to be unconstitutional. Does Cowan approve of this 'strong libertarian protection for minority rights against state power, including for Muslims'? Perhaps. The fellow is an economist- i.e. a shithead.

I also believe these moves will be bad for India’s economy. Nonetheless I find most of the extant commentary on Modi fairly misleading and/or naive.
As this outsider sees it, India’s secular democracy was never liberal.

Nor was American or British or any other democracy- secular or otherwise.

It had certain de facto liberal elements, but largely out of low levels of state capacity, necessitating a kind of tolerance but of course also leading to a very sub-par infrastructure.

There are no 'de facto' liberal elements. There is merely neglect. Tolerance does not mean the same thing as turning a blind eye to stuff you accept you have to put up with.

Furthermore, it has been commonly described by political scientists as a “democracy without accountability.”

But such political scientists are commonly described as cretins. Fuck they'd know about accountability? The fact is India's judiciary is more activist than either the US or the UK- the latter has only had a Supreme Court for the last 10 years. It is only now that a 'doctrine of political question' is making some progress in India. Otherwise, accountability was absolute. Indeed, the Lok Pal agitation was about making it multi-dimensional.

  National voting has so much to do with religion, caste, and other particularistic principles that Indian democracy never enforced superior practical performance as it should have.

Coz Americans disregard color and gender and vote for proclaimed Atheists with great gusto. Why doesn't Cowan simply say 'India is a shithole. They do things differently there coz everything is covered with shit.'

Then enter several forces at more or less the same time, including Modi, ongoing Indian economic growth, higher expectations and thus greater demands for state capacity, a rise in what is called “populism,” and also an increase in the focality of Islam and also terrorism around the world.

But all this existed twenty years ago. No new forces have entered the equation.

In essence that state capacity starts to be built and part of it is turned to wrong ends, in an attempt to appeal to the roughly 80 percent Hindu majority.  Here is the NYT:

State capacity was built long ago by people like Sardar Patel. During the Emergency, people could see with their own eyes that India was not what Myrdal called a 'soft state'. It was a hard state which could crush your nut sack. The Opposition disappeared into jail. The Press 'crawled when it was asked to bend'. Civil Servants showed up punctually at their offices and at least pretended to look busy. The trains ran on time.

State capacity has always existed in India. But it was generally counter-productive. As Gurcharan Das put it, 'India grew by night'.

The Modi administration has also done a better job than previous governments in pushing big anti-poverty initiatives, such as building 100 million toilets to help stop open defecation and the spread of deadly disease.
In other words, the positive and negative sides of the story here may be more closely related than is comfortable to contemplate.

Bullshit! The last mile delivery is true enough. But the allegation that Modi is targeting Muslims is fake news. That's it. That's the whole story.

  The picture reminds me a bit of how parts of Renaissance Europe were often more anti-Semitic or racist than medieval Europe, in part because persecuting states had more resources and it was easier to mobilize intolerant sentiment, partly due to the printing press. 

Parts of something are often different from parts of something else. There is no causal relationship here. People don't kill Jews because they read stuff. Illiterates are just as good at doing it- if they think it a fun way to pass the time or else it is remunerative in some way. Look at Rwanda. The massacre of the Tutsis was low tech. You don't need gas chambers and cattle trucks. Just put the word out and let the majority crack open the skulls of the minority with agricultural implements.

I don’t however idolize medieval times as being so libertarian, rather the earlier ideology contained the seeds of the Renaissance oppressions, which in time turned into foreign imperialism as well.

Why not say 'I don't idolize the stone age for being libertarian though it contained the seeds of Robert Heinlein's libertarian Lunar Republic. '

Similarly, oppression and religious conflict is hardly news in India, for instance you may recall the Partition which in the 1940s killed at least one million people and displaced at least 10 million more.

Why not recall the Bangladesh genocide which gave rise to a massive exodus, mainly Hindu, to India in 1971? It is estimated that 3 million were killed or were unaccounted for. Over 10 million- perhaps even 30 million- were internally displaced. Guess which side the USA was on back then. Yup. They backed the good guys- the Pakistani Army which was heroically trying to rape and kill millions of Bengali people.

None of this is to excuse any of these oppressions, whether in India or elsewhere.  The libertarian rights still ought to apply, and should be written into the Indian constitution and laws more firmly.

Fuck would this cretin know about the Indian constitution and Indian laws?

(It is an interesting and much under-discussed result that the greatest violations of libertarian rights tend to come in periods of high delta in state capacity, not high absolute levels of state capacity per se. 

This is not a 'result'. It is shitting higher than your arsehole. State capacity does not have a 'delta' value. For any given technology, the absolute level of state capacity can be at the boundary of the production possibility frontier. That frontier can shrink or it can expand. This depends on exogenous factors subject to Knightian uncertainty. Contingency markets in this connection would quickly crash because Muth rationality predicts this outcome. Otherwise a 'money pump' exists.

The Nazi government was not that large as a percentage of gdp, but it was growing rapidly in terms of its efficacy along certain dimensions.)

Cowen is being silly. Everyone knows that even if an enterprise was privately owned it was still controlled by the State. Because Germans were stupider than British people, Britain outperformed Germany, in relative terms, when it came to things like aircraft development and production.

The moral and resonant message here is “libertarian rights for minorities truly are important and beware state power!” 

This is nonsense. Minorities can fuck themselves up very badly. State power can prevent this happening- e.g. by forcing daddies not to rape all their little girls or sacrifice all their sons to the great God Ba'al.

Equality before the law is important- but that means obligations grow more rapidly than entitlements. It turns out that once minorities give up some irrational and inhumane practices, they can do well.

This does not have to be the outcome of 'state power'. Being beaten regularly by your neighbors can have the same salutary effect.

And somehow we need to think strategically, at a deep level, how that message can be combined with the inevitable and indeed desirable growth in Indian state capacity.

Why does Cowen need to, for the first time in his life, 'think strategically, at a deep level' about a country he knows nothing about? His thoughts on America are worthless. What good have they achieved?

  The libertarians only make this their issue by eliding the need for growth in state capacity.  So they moralize correctly about the situation, but they don’t see the underlying dilemma so clearly either.
Consider this NYT passage:
“Modi is not a normal politician who measures his success only by votes,” said Kanchan Chandra, a political scientist at New York University. “He sees himself as the architect of a new India, built on a foundation of technological, cultural, economic and military prowess, and backed by an ideology of Hindu nationalism.”

Kanchan Chandra is an ABCD credentialized cretin. She didn't get why Modi chose Adityanath to be CM of UP. The answer was blindingly obvious. U.P voters had shown a preference for youth- Akhilesh, not his Daddy, had been C.M. Adityanath happened to be in-between the ages of Rahul and Akhiliesh. Of course, he'd been in Parliament for a lot longer and had more experience. Still, it was his age that was the clinching factor.

How does Modi see himself? The answer is as the second Vajpayee. If he starts thinking of himself as the architect of a new 'India Shining', he will meet the fate of his predecessor. By contrast, by sticking with last mile delivery of 'mamuli' things like toilets and cooking gas cylinders, he can slowly be part of the change that Indians want to see in their country.

The real question here is — still mostly unanswered — “what else is the new ideology of state capacity supposed to be?” 

Ideology is shite. Values may be good- and Modi has good values- but all that matters is governance. 'For forms of government, let fools contest/ Whatever is best administered is best.'

I am happy to put in my vote for Anglo-American liberalism, but still I recognize that probably will not command either a majority or even a plurality.

But India had affirmative action and so forth before 'Anglo-America'.

Here is one proffered alternative to Modi:
“Rahul Gandhi felt people would support the Congress on issues of farmers, youth, employment, inflation. But, the core issues were left behind and surgical strikes and nationalism were highlighted. The Congress was dubbed a Muslim party. Aren’t we nationalists?” Gehlot asked.

No, Gehlot Sahib, you are a flunky of a dynasty. You take orders from a lady born in Italy to a father who was an enthusiastic Fascist. The words of your Rahul Baba are quoted by Imran Khan. You are an anti-nationalist.

I am not so impressed.  Or try this discussion “What is alternative to ‘Modi cult'”.  Again, on the ideas front underwhelming, at least for this classical liberal.  Maybe something good can come out of the current protest movement (NYT).

The current protest movement is about telling Muslims they will be deported. But this is a lie. Muslims know it. They can see for themselves that anti-social elements and crazy students are using this as an excuse to run amok.
It may be that Modi and Shah hope that the sight of crazy students in burqas and stone pelting youth wearing skull caps will 'consolidate' the Hindu vote. But elections are far away. What is really happening is that the BJP is giving the dynasts and their sycophantic elites enough rope to hang themselves. They are going to double down on anti-nationalism as they previously doubled down on anti-Hinduism. This will cause a backlash.
Consider the text of the opinion piece Cowan links to above- every line of it is false-
 As India’s new citizenship law seeks to create a stratified citizenship based on religion, 
India does not have 'stratified citizenship'. It doesn't even have dual nationality. By contrast, the U.K and the USA do have stratified citizenship (e.g. Overseas citizens with limited rights of domicile)  yet the two Indian origin academics who wrote this dreck have welcomed the opportunity to move to one or other of those countries.
What India is doing is recognizing that Hindus who have fled Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan are genuine refugees and should be granted citizenship. Economic migrants from Islamic Republics have absolutely no right of domicile or citizenship.
a large number of Indians opposing it are emerging as a people of one book, the country’s Constitution, which came into force on Jan. 26, 1950.
But the Constitution itself says that only the Supreme Court can interpret it. When the Bench upholds what Modi has done, these 'people of one book' will discover that they are people who are shit at understanding what they read.
In the past two weeks, diverse crowds across the country have responded to the discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act, referred to as the C.A.A., passed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government by chanting the preamble to the Constitution of India, with its promises of social, political and economic justice, freedom of thought, expression and belief, equality and fraternity.
Nothing wrong with chanting. But that's not all these guys are doing is it?

Student protesters being herded into police vans, opposition leaders standing outside the Indian Parliament and ebullient crowds of tens of thousands in Hyderabad, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai have read aloud the preamble and held aloft copies of the Constitution and portraits of B.R. Ambedkar, its chief draftsman.
While creating a public nuisance and breaking the law.

The C.A.A. offers an accelerated pathway to citizenship for Hindu, Sikh, Zoroastrian, Buddhist and Christian migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan but excludes Muslims. 
For the excellent reason that Muslims don't come to India because they are persecuted for being Muslims in Islamic Republics.
It effectively creates a hierarchical system of citizenship determined by an individual’s religion, reminiscent of Myanmar’s 1982 Citizenship Law, which privileged citizenship for “indigenous races,” excluded the Rohingya and paved the ground for the genocidal violence against them.
Myanmar had already gotten rid of a large portion of its Indian origin population. It is crazy to suggest that the military Junta cared about Laws. They waged war against large sections of their own population.

The Indian government’s justification that the C.A.A. offers protection to people facing religious persecution in neighboring countries is specious.
Really? Then how come the non-Muslim population of Islamic States has fallen so much over the decades?
 The new citizenship law does not require proof of religious persecution, and it is applied arbitrarily to non-Muslim minorities from three Muslim-majority neighbors.
It is not arbitrary, but a matter of common sense, to grant refuge for non-Muslims fleeing murderous Islamic mobs in Islamic Republics.
The law ignores the claims of Muslim minorities facing religious persecution in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan 
But no Muslim minority in any of these countries has asked for asylum in India. The Pakistani Ahmediyas are arguably the worst affected. Has their leader asked for India to take them in? Nope. On the other hand, Indian Muslims have expressed hostility to letting them in. Currently, it is mainly female spouses of Pakistani origin living in Qadian who are affected. It would be an easy matter to regularize their position. But this should be done quietly for fear of upsetting the Muslim Personal Law Board.
and excludes persecuted minorities of all faiths from Sri Lanka, China and Myanmar, which have non-Muslim governments.
Coz the Chinese are queuing up to come to India! Sri Lanka has a higher standard of living- anyway, India has bilateral treaties with Myanmar and Sri Lanka on these matters.
Why don't these two cretins condemn India for refusing to grant citizenship to thousands of American Jews facing ghastly anti-semitic persecution in Trump's America? Will they spare no tears for the plight of the British Quakers under Bo Jo's militaristic regime? Why is India's citizenship law discriminating so blatantly against wealthy White people?

The new citizenship law must be seen in conjunction with the drive to create a National Register of Citizens, ostensibly aimed at identifying and removing illegal immigrants. 
As opposed to what? The suggestio falsi here is that legal citizens will be targeted in some sinister manner. But, in India, a person's religion is immediately revealed by her name. The Voters lists are good enough for any purpose of ethnic cleansing.
As seen in the state of Assam where the N.R.C. has already been implemented, its requirement of documents to prove citizenship will effectively disqualify millions from that very status.
Because they are illegal migrants whom successive Congress Governments promised to remove. Finally, the Supreme Court took over direction of this operation.

Amit Shah, the home minister of India, has repeatedly said that the C.A.A. will help everyone except Muslims to reclaim their citizenship if they fail the N.R.C. test.
Why? Because Muslims face no danger of forced conversion or religious persecution if returned to their Islamic country of origin.
The citizenship act breaks from the conscious decision of India’s founders not to link citizenship to religion, language or ethnicity. Sardar Patel, India’s first home minister, asserted that a citizenship predicated solely on connection to territory was “enlightened, modern and civilized,” and the mark of all progressive nations.
But neither Patel, nor Nehru, nor Gandhi, ever said non Muslims fleeing Pakistan should be forced back. India also agreed to take back Indian origin people from Myanmar and Sri Lanka.

Following the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, India resisted a total exchange of populations with Pakistan and encouraged Muslims to remain. Millions did. India also enabled those who had left for Pakistan in 1947 to return home.
This is not true as a matter of law. There may be compassionate exceptions but there is no general 'right to return'. Once one has a father or grandfather who was a Pakistani citizen, no right to Indian citizenship arises save for those fleeing religious persecution who are genuine refugees. It is this last which is being expedited.

What is taking place in India is a clash between two different political visions. 
What has been taking place in India for the last three decades is a clash between the lie that the BJP is actually a Fascist party and the truth that the Gandhi dynasty is corrupt, incompetent and propped up by a brain-dead Leftist class.
The Indian state is enacting an authoritarian vision in which political rights are conditioned on the privileges of religion and class and on being obedient subjects.
This is not true. Giving citizenship to genuine refugees is not an 'authoritarian' vision. Why mention 'class' and 'obedient subjects'? Religion I can understand- it is a fact that Islamic Republics make it hot for kaffirs- but how did 'class' enter the equation? But why stop there? Why do these two cretin refer to gender and sexuality? How dare they forget disability? What they should say is 'the Indian state is enacting an authoritarian vision in which political rights are conditioned on the privileges of religion, class, heteronormativity, having a big dick, not being a disabled transgender person of at least two different colors, and obediently shouting Zeig Heil! and invading Poland every time the Fuhrer tells you to.'
Mr. Modi’s government makes this clear in choosing to celebrate the upcoming 70th anniversary of the Constitution of India by focusing on “fundamental duties” of Indian citizens, which include protecting private property, abjuring from violence and striving toward excellence.
What a bastard! Indians have a fundamental duty to destroy private property, indulge in violence and shit upon excellence.

An idea borrowed from the Soviet Union, fundamental duties were inserted into the Constitution of India in 1976 by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who suspended constitutional rights, jailed opposition leaders and silenced the press between June 1975 and March 1977 — a period known in India as the Emergency.

Indira Gandhi is Rahul baba's granny. She was supported by the Communist Party of India. Currently, in Maharashtra, Congress is allied with the Shiv Sena. Still, it owed its return to power to the Left- which it pumped and dumped.

Indians have responded with a robust declaration of Constitutional rights and values.
But the Supreme Court will find that Modi has acted constitutionally. Indeed, he can change the Constitution- just as Indira did- if it suits him.
 The numbers on the streets are swelling with the recognition that the government is repurposing colonial-era tactics to repress protests.
After Independence, India beefed up repressive laws. Screw 're-purposing', we had a bigger, shinier, more effective security apparatus. No Indian regime has been as shaky as Viceroy Wavell's.

An archaic law prohibiting the public assembly of more than four people has been used in several places and the internet has been shut down in five states.
A law which has been used continuously in every decade in some part of the country is not 'archaic'. As for the internet, no doubt there were laws about it back when the Brits were still running things.
 The police have killed 25 people, used tear gas and water cannons, caused injuries leading to amputation and blinding, detained minors and attacked hospitals and libraries.
The Yellow Vest agitation in France has more fatalities despite the fact that India has a population 20 times as large.
 Universities have been ordered to monitor the social media activity of students.
But Harvard has been doing it since the beginning of this decade.
Adopted in 1950, the Constitution of India was regarded by some as an elite document drafted in an alien language. Yet in its first decade, ordinary Indians transformed it into a talisman and a resource to advance claims to liberty and livelihood.
Very true! The ordinary Indian would rise at dawn to feed the cows. Then he would put on his barrister's gown and advance claims to liberty and livelihood in the Supreme Court for the rest of the morning. They he would take a little nap under a tree. In the afternoon he would plow his fields while looking over the the latest issue of the 'Constitutional Law for fun and profit' magazine.
 Distinct groups turned to the Constitution to protect their specific interests. 
Much good it did them.
Today’s mobilization is a broad coalition, which raises a common demand for full political citizenship and all that this implies by way of duties upon the state.

How is it a broad coalition? It's just some rowdy students, a few Muslims and some Opposition spokespeople. What the fuck does 'full political citizenship' mean? How do you tell if your political citizenship is only half full? Where do you go to top it up? Rather meanly, our two authors won't tell us.

The articulation of constitutional rights and values has also invigorated the federal spirit. 
No. It has invigorated the feudal spirit of sycophancy to the Dynasty.
While India is constitutionally a federation, its states have enjoyed greater rights during eras of coalition union governments.
India is a Union of States. The word 'federation' is not used in the Constitution. The British had proposed a Federal structure but nothing came of it.

The electoral dominance of Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party since 2014 emboldened his government to erode the autonomy of Indian states, including limitation of fiscal powers, interventionism by federally appointed governors of the states and the revocation of the autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir and its abrupt dissolution as a state.

The Supreme Court said in 2016 that no State- including J&K- has even a vestige of autonomy. But that was always obvious. The Center and the Center alone carved up States and Union Territories as it pleased.

In the aftermath of the protests against the C.A.A., the chief ministers of nine Indian states have refused to implement the new citizenship law and the citizens register. Leaders of six political parties, including those allied with the B.J.P., have voiced concerns about its disenfranchising effects.

So what? Their compliance is unnecessary. The Bench, and the Bench alone, will decide the constitutionality of these measures. Whether or not they will be implemented will be up to Center.

In various states, Mr. Modi’s government had started building detention centers for people unable to prove themselves as citizens under the new registry. 
If these two cretins have such an aversion to detention centers, why don't they quit the U.K or the U.S.A which stringently enforce immigration rules?
The recently elected chief minister of the state of Maharashtra stopped the construction of the detention centers commissioned by his B.J.P. predecessor. 
Wonderful! So the Shiv Sena now wants to coddle migrants! No wonder Congress allied with the only openly Fascist party in India. But then, it too is now wholly dynastic. Like calls to like. Thackerays and Gandhis are sisters under the skin.
Opposition has been growing as the B.J.P. has been losing elections for state legislatures.
Cool. So there's no need for any stupid agitation. The ordinary working of electoral politics provides enough of a check and a balance upon 'authoritarianism' or 'populism' or whatever.
The Indian judiciary’s response to the protests against the C.A.A. and the N.R.C. has been mixed. The Guwahati High Court in Assam responded favorably to litigation seeking to restore internet connectivity in the state. The Delhi High Court postponed the hearings relating to the violence against student protesters by six weeks and was met by cries of “shame!” in the courtroom.
The big problem is lawyers who beat up policemen. As for 'shame', which lawyer is capable of any such emotion? Chidambaram? Kapil Sabil? Maybe Sushma Swaraj or Arun Jaitley- but both are dead.

And there have been novel invocations of the Constitution to challenge nationalism and build alliances between disparate groups and regions. From rap to Urdu poetry, TikTok videos to artwork, using the Constitution as a tool for public politics has become the zeitgeist.
No question, the zeitgeist is created by tools, for tools, so that being a tool will be considered cool.

In 1951, Justice Vivian Bose, a judge of the Supreme Court of India, wrote that the Constitution was “not just dull, lifeless words … but living flames intended to give life to a great nation … tongues of dynamic fire, potent to mold the future.”
Vivian is a real butch name. But is the allusion to Pentecost fire apposite in context? Yes if you believe in a Messianic Age. No if you think people babbling nonsense are merely off their chump or are teaching some worthless shite in a worthless shite University Department.

We are witnessing now a rediscovery of the republic — and of our Constitution as its blazing torch.

Coz every babbling cretin has become an Apostle of the New Messiah! Nice to these two kids with Hindu names are getting with the program. Hope they get baptized real soon.

Returning to Cowan, who thinks it worthwhile to highlight this type of illiterate tosh, we can only hope some passing Exorcist relieves him of the demon of stupidity which has ensured his reputation as an economist.

What the fuck does this mean?

All the more, the “establishment media” just isn’t interested in framing the story in terms of individual rights and constraints on democracy. 

Does Cowan mean the Judiciary? But that is well covered. Anyway, the only 'establishment media' relevant to a discussion about India is established Indian media- more especially the vernacular language channels.

That narrative is too…well…libertarian and also anti-statist.
For one example, blame either Nilinjana Roy or the person who titled her FT column “Democracy in India is on the brink.”  Last I checked, Modi was elected, then re-elected, and his party and its allies control almost 2/3 of the lower house.  That is truly an Orwellian column title. 

No. It is simply a stupid lie.

It should not be so hard to write “The problem with Modi is the statism, and lack of respect for minority rights, sadly this is democratically certified and thus democracy requires real constitutional constraint of the powers of the government.”

Why write this nonsense? Everything Modi does is reviewed by the Supreme Court. Since he has respected the Constitution and there is no evidence against him at all, it is likely that he will be allowed to carry on. The 'Real Constitutional Constraint' already exists. Sadly, it can't punish imaginary crimes.

  But so many people today are mentally and emotionally incapable of thinking and writing such thoughts, having spent so much time in their mood affiliation glorifying “democracy” (or what they take to be democracy) above all other values.
So we should be spending our time developing and publicizing a new (non-Modi) ideology for greater state capacity in India, combined of course with greater liberty.

Cool! How about this- 'Do everything Modi is doing but keep saying Hinduism is evil.' What's that? Congress already did it while enriching itself? Oh, well, in that case don't bother.

And yes, please do restore, redefine, re-enforce or in some cases discover all of the required minority libertarian rights.  Hundreds of millions of Indians and others are counting on it.

Hilarious! Cowan thinks Indians are eager for his wisdom. I can assure him that there may be a few hundred Indian cretins who think he is smart, nobody else in India has heard of him or wants to hear from him.

The Rights based approach to Development failed. Why? Rights have to be linked to incentive compatible remedies under a bond of law. It is foolish to think that sufficient 'State Capacity' is a magic wand. The problem remains that State Capacity won't be exercised to secure a Right unless an appropriate incentive exists. Merkel's Germany may have had sufficient state capacity to make good on her 'come one, come all' offer to the Syrians. But it lacked the incentive to do so. Thus it barred the gates and left hundreds and thousands in limbo.