Tuesday 1 June 2021

Raji Jayaraman wrong on Modi


Raji Jayaraman is probably a deracinated Tambram like me. Daddy was a diplomat and so we didn't really spend too much time in India. What's more, that time was spent in an Anglophone bubble. Our caste had been disintermediated from Tamil politics but we did have some networks in the Civil Service, the Corporate Sector, and the Left-Liberal English media.

Raji and I were too stupid to do Maths or Physics and so got stuck with crap Econ credentials. We both write shite about India. Since Raji writes anti-national shite, 3 quarks publishes her but bars my comments. 

This is what she has to say 

I know someone—I’ll call him by his initials, KR—who is a Modi supporter.

But, does KR know who Raji supports? If not, there is an uncorrelated asymmetry here. Thus, there can't be any communicative strategy or dialogic process which enlarges the common information set. If I own x and you don't own x, a conversation we have, about how come I own x and you don't, won't get very far. Essentially, I'll just keep telling you- politely or impolitely- that you are a cretin who probably eats dog shit and that you should fuck off. 

The problem here is that Raji dislikes Modi but doesn't necessarily like anybody else. KR says he likes Modi and may then be obliged to say he dislikes other politicians. But we can't be sure this is really the case. All we can definitely say is that KR has an interest in seeing India is as well governed as possible. He is playing the 'bourgeois strategy' because that is eusocial. Raji is just virtue signaling for a reputational benefit in a country far far away.  Thus, it doesn't matter what KR says to Raji or what Raji thinks KR is saying. The possibility of communication has been foreclosed. On the other hand, we may well infer a gentle rebuke of Raji's own deracination in what KR is saying to her

I have known KR for as long as I can remember.

Did Raji call him Uncle?  Hopefully this isn't a Me Too molestation story. 

He is an intelligent, well-educated, well-travelled man. Now retired, he has a successful career behind him. He is Hindu, but he actively participated in the traditions and practices of other religions.

Which ones? Jihad? Voodoo? Why is Raji being so coy?  What is she trying to hide?

Personally, I have great affection for him. Politically, we are now like oil and water.

It is natural for a Canadian to have very different political preferences from a person who lives in India. Indeed, most Indians have little opportunity to mix with Canadians.  

I usually avoid discussing politics with him because it inevitably ends in an argument: his view of Prime Minister Modi couldn’t be further from mine. In order to understand why people like him continue to support Modi—even now, as India is ravaged by the pandemic—I did something that I hadn’t done before. I asked him, and I listened without arguing.

Why couldn't Raji have simply adopted the Muth rational solution- i.e. the prediction of the correct economic theory (in this case, that the leader whom one should support is the best, or least worst, leader on offer) which is also the bourgeois strategy (i.e. identify an uncorrelated asymmetry and accord legitimacy accordingly) . Modi actually is P.M. So far, no alternative PM candidate has been mooted- Rahul still being gun-shy) If Modi is supported, the Center has more effective power in dealing with the COVID and the related economic crisis. If he is demonized then Farmers' protests and so forth are valorized. Look where that got us!

Why is an economist listening to some retired guy? She should be able to work out- on the basis of his 'oikeiosis' what his Muth rational strategy should be. By all means she can confirm and refine this by talking to him. By letting the poor chap bite her ear off, all she is doing is confirming herself in a Manichaean view of the world.  

I have struggled to organize our hours-long conversation, but I think it can be distilled into three broad themes. The first is extraordinary reverence for Modi, which results in almost unconditional support for his policies.

This is silly. Extraordinary reverence is evidenced by spectacular acts of worship or sacrifice. Has KR sold all he has and joined the RSS as a humble svayamsevak? No. Raji is lying. 

What actually happened was that KR knew that this virtue signaling cretin thinks Modi is Hitler and has to go to the other extreme to make his point before Raji starts vigorously fisting herself in public to protest Patriarchy and cause Modi's beard to fall out. 

The second is visceral contempt for the opposition Congress party.

Because Rahul was gun shy. He refused to step up to the plate. We have a dynastic party whose sole raison d'etre is to get the heir, by right of primogeniture, to sit on the P.M's chair. But Rahul won't even head Congress, let alone the country. Nobody else can come forward either. Manmohan actually started to look less decrepit once in opposition. There was some mileage left in him. Why did Rahul cut him off at the knees but then refuse to crown himself? Had he done so, he'd have won as 'Mr. Clean' and 'Youth ki avaaz' in 2014. Advani would have been allowed his last hurrah, heading up the Opposition. Modi would have roared like the lions of his native Gujarat. But that would have been all he did. 

The third is a suspicion of Muslims in today’s India.

If even Saudi Arabia and the UAE and Egypt and so forth are 'suspicious' of certain Muslims- as are the governments of the US and Canada and UK and Macron's hijab-hating France- then why virtue signal on Indian Islamophobia?  

Although I mention this third theme, I will not discuss it in this essay because its perplexity warrants a separate treatment.

Not from Raji. She is a cretin. She doesn't get that her fellow Canadians are more, not less, Islamophobic than Indians according to Canadian Muslim researchers. They found

 According to survey findings: • 46% of Canadians have an unfavourable view of Islam – more than for any other religious tradition ; • fewer than half of Canadians would find it “acceptable” for one of their children to marry a Muslim – lower than for any other religious group ; • 56% of Canadians believe that Islam suppresses women’s rights ; • more than half of people living in Ontario feel mainstream Muslim doctrines promote violence ; • 52% of Canadians feel that Muslims can only be trusted “a little” or “not at all” ; • 42% of Canadians think discrimination against Muslims is “mainly their fault”8 ; • 47% of Canadians support banning headscarves in public (compared with 30% of Americans)9 ; • 51% support government surveillance of mosques (as compared to 46% of Americans)

Given these facts, we can understand why Raji- writing for a website run by Pakistani Americans, who have very good reasons to be even more phobic of certain Islamic tendencies, decides to drop the Muslim issue vis a vis Modi. 

Here, I focus on the first two themes.

First, the man himself: “People support Modi because

he, not anybody else, is the PM. This is an uncorrelated asymmetry. Others may be nicer or smarter or better but they aint PM. Indeed, currently there is no alternative PM candidate. Rahul is still gun shy. Mamta can't leave Bengal. Who else is there? Kejriwal? But a Delhi CM can't suddenly morph into a supporter of stubble burning farmers. He is stuck where he is.  

of his honesty, integrity, and nationalism.

Manmohan had those qualities. Then Rahul cut him off at the knees. But Rahul didn't step forward to crown himself. Thus, it became a case of Modi or nobody.  

Modi is not corrupt. He is not interested in personal wealth.

Raji isn't interested in serving the country of her birth. She may well be corruptly teaching worthless shite simply to gain some wealth the only way she knows how. KR is rebuking Raji and her ilk for their lack of patriotism and general uselessness.

He is a man of integrity and he expects that of the people around him.

Unlike academics who are known to be reckless with the truth and to spend all their time intriguing, or virtue signaling, to get ahead.  

Modi is a shrewd politician too. He has extraordinary oratory capacity and his level of absorption of facts is amazing. When I say he is a nationalist, I mean that he is interested in the nation as a whole.

To be fair, Raji can't harm the country from Toronto. She too may be a nationalist in the only way she can be- viz by staying the fuck away from India.

Anyway, I've said enough for you to get the general idea. Modi had little education but he is helping India. Raji has a lot of education. She is shitting on India. Thankfully, she is too shite for anybody to take any notice. 

He is interested in India’s welfare. He has powerful ideas. His policies [such as providing latrines and bank accounts] are aimed at development for the whole nation. Everything he has done, he has done for all Indians.” Even Modi’s fiercest critics would probably agree that he is not interested in amassing personal riches, and is a gifted politician and orator.

Modi is cautious in his approach to reform but deracinated cunts like me have come to see that he had good reason to be cautious. But we do want to, indeed, need to, feel good about India. We don't want a PM who says the Naxals are winning or that 'Hindu terrorists' will blow up the Taj Mahal as part of their fanatical mission to force us  to give up kebab & sharab & English-Vinglish & wearing jeans instead of sari or dhoti. 

In terms of policies, I begin by asking KR about demonitization where, in 2016, Modi announced that in a matter of hours, 500- and 1000-Rupee notes—86 percent of the currency in circulation—would no longer be considered legal tender. This is a policy, which he knows I have strong objections to as an economist because evidence indicates that it missed its target of reducing corruption, and it hurt India’s poor, many of whom work in a cash-based economy. I also know that KR is deeply committed to the welfare of the poor, and that he abhors corruption. But his faith in Modi translates into faith in Modi’s policies.

KR knows 'India grows by night'. Bribes are good if they enable Industry to escape stupid regulations. V.P Singh's anti-corruption drive would have killed off the golden goose which, after the IMF put a gun to our heads, did enable peeps like KR to do quite well and decide to retire to India or invest there rather than simply run away. 

Anna Hazare's anti-corruption and 'Lok Pal' agitation had the potential to do what NGO & PIL git-pit did not- viz. permanently fuck over the country and trap it in an involuted 'rent dissipation'  low-income Malthusian trap. I blogged about this ten years ago. Raji should have been reading me, not talking to Uncleji- more particularly if she couldn't Me Too him for sexually molesting her. 

Modi used demonetization to kill off grass-roots anti-corruption crusades. Since he gained by it politically, the 'bourgeois strategy' was vindicated. If nutters create a nuisance to harm the Government, the Government can inflict a much greater nuisance on the entire country till nutters lose their constituency. Modi's genius was that he got Muslims to protest the Indian Government's settled policy of granting citizenship to non-Muslims fleeing neighboring countries. It is notable that the Govt. hasn't bothered to frame rules under their CAA bill. They are inviting applications under the 1955 Act. True, Kejriwal gained by this- but so did the BJP. In Bengal as well, the only losers have been the Congress and the Left. The 'bourgeois strategy' isn't just about having a strong P.M. Chief Ministers too need to be shown to be Goliaths on their home turf. Modi has accomplished this. Us Tamils are happy- Stalin is likely to be a good CM- Keralites are happy with 'Captain' who is a self-proclaimed Deng Xiaoping. Amarinder seems to be doing well. Gehlot was always well regarded. The big question is whether Yogi is having an impact. If the answer is yes then Modi has a successor. If not, when all is said and done, he is just a flash in the pan. That may be a good thing for the RSS.  

He doesn’t believe that Modi would institute an ill-advised policy in the first place. “Will any person who is sane want to implement a policy if he knows that it is definitely going to fail? Why would he? [Modi] thought that this policy was going to succeed. I really thought that demonitization was a master stroke—that it would cut off all corruption.”

To be fair, demonetization did hurt other parties while increasing the power and popularity of the BJP. This outcome was not inevitable. If there had been indications that vested interests had received advance notice of demonetization then there would have been a backlash against the government.  

KR defends the policy by holding Modi’s opponents responsible for its shortcomings.

No he doesn't. The poor fellow just blabs anything that comes into his head. Demonetization revealed the shortcomings of the Indian financial system and dispelled faith in a frictionless transition to a cashless economy. It was a discovery process.  

“Everyone had to be honest to make demonitization a success. Demonitization failed because people took advantage of the system. People used it to enrich themselves. The opposition and unscrupulous elements used it to convert their ‘black money’.”

Modi gets that 'leadership' is about breaking concurrency livelock or deadlock. If Raji is any kind of economist, she should know this. The 'bourgeois strategy' only works if agents act decisively, for good or ill, like the 'bonus paterfamilias' invoked by the Civil Law tradition. This has an even better expression in Hinduism but, sadly, Hindus were so shit at developing a global maritime marine that we just relied on Brits for this, and other, exorbitantly expensive, 'invisible imports'. 

One reason we like Modi is because he backs Adani- who develops Ports. Raji probably has no idea what I'm getting at. But then she is as stupid as shit.  

On the current Covid crisis, where he has personally experienced loss, he defends Modi’s action and inaction as follows: “Did we have a textbook prescription to decide on what is right, what is wrong? Could anyone have been 100%, 80%, 50% perfect?  Besides, health, and law and order, are state government issues. The central government can only make recommendations; executive authority and responsibility lies with states. Also, you have to talk about the opposition when talking about the government’s failures. When [Modi] suggested that campaigns [for state elections, which are thought to have contributed to the spread of Covid-19] be done online, they refused to accept it.”

Modi may well have believed an Indian study which suggested India would hit herd immunity by early 2021. Anyway, as with demonetization, lockdown showed the vast gap between official, or academic, models and the blindingly obvious reality- India is as poor as shit. Still, Modi put a good spin on things and, since some 'Indian variant' can be blamed, managed the international optics on this. It seems that Jaishankar- a TamBram like me and (I assume) Raji- has proved effective in diplomacy. The fact is, 'Wuhan virus' may have been 'gain of function' based- i.e. a Frankenstein monster- whereas India was the country offering help to all the world- hubris, yes, but hubris in a good cause- till succumbing to a double mutation of an English or other foreign strain. 

Why does Raji not mention Teacher Shailaja? She is our one true hero. But 'Captain' has excluded her from his new Cabinet though it is doubtful if he'd have defeated 'anti-incumbency' save for her sterling efforts. 

Our discussion of other policies followed a similar pattern, best described in Sudhir and Katharina Kakar’s book,

Sudhir Kakar is basically a failed engineer/management type. He writes like shit- perhaps because the brains were buggered out of him in Barakhamba road. Why is Raji invoking the memory of that silly man? He is as stupid as shit and almost entirely ignorant of European paideia- forget Hindu religion and philosophy. 

The Indians: Portrait of a People, which was published in 2007, well before Modi became prime minister. In it, the Kakars remark that in India,

and every other fucking country under the Sun,

leaders “take on an emotional importance independent of any realistic evaluation of their performance…

Why? Because emotions are 'Darwinian algorithms of the mind' which evolved to solve concurrency and preference revelation and 'Newcombe' problems such that Social Choice mechanisms with 'inclusive fitness' might prevail. 

Why is Raji so entirely ignorant of the foundations of her discipline in Evolutionary Game Theory? How fucking stupid is she?  

In contrast to most people in the West, Indians are generally more prone to revere than admire.

According to old stereotypes, the 'heteronomous' Hindu was more prone to chuck an idol on the rubbish heap if it failed to perform. We'd kill our Gandhis before they got too shite- which is why Rahul is gun shy. But, we also emigrate first chance we get. Thus, I now get to vote for Priti Patel who spends her days biting the faces off undocumented migrants.  But I don't 'revere' her. I can't say I admire her- though she does have a Thatcher like quality. Still, this country is stuck with Brexit and the Muth rational strategy is to back those who have the power to make it work for the working class of this country.  

It is not that Indians are not sceptical of authority figures. Indeed, their cynicism towards leaders, especially political leaders, is often extreme. It is only that when an Indian grants authority to a leader, his critical faculties disappear in the waves of credulity that wash over him…[T]here is a complementary tendency to idealize the leader and look at him as a repository of all virtues, an almost superhuman figure deserving of their faith and respect.”

Raji is certainly credulous and uncritical. But this aint because she is Indian. It is because she is as stupid as shit and what she teaches is actively mischievous. 

Why is Modi idolized? The answer is because he has an inspiring life-story. For the first time in history, a 'backward caste' person- too poor to attend College- has risen to the top on the basis of merit. Since he is a celibate- what Hindus call a 'brahmacharee'- and his family has not amassed wealth, he is considered a self-less patriot who works hard for the common-weal. He takes risks because it is part of his jobs to take risks. Even if when he fails, he gets marks for trying to do something good.

It is not irrational to support a leader if no alternative is on offer. Under conditions of information asymmetry and concurrency deadlock, the bourgeois strategy is to affirm an extreme of faith w.r.t a Kavka toxin. This has a reputational benefit and solves a coordination problem. What Raji is doing is virtue signaling by reason of a discoordination game. But we don't think she is smart at all. Basically she is saying 'I iz Indian- i.e. as stupid as shit. Please give me intellectual affirmative action coz all my Uncles fucked me in the head. Gimme tenure already coz I alone can empathize with all the other very special little flowers whose long and sordid history of epistemic self-abuse has left them incapable of paying for any other sort of sheepskin.'  

KR’s reverence for Modi and credulity for his policies go hand in hand with cynicism regarding Modi’s opponents.

What fucking opponents? Who did Congress put up to challenge him as C.M of Gujjus? Shankarsih Vaghela! Why not simply say- 'Modi is merely a 'merchant of death'. Come vote for his RSS senior who is from the Warrior class and thus can be the Genghis Khan of death! Let us have proper pogroms! not this miserly and exiguous ethnic cleansing!'

The Godhra atrocity was committed by Ghanchis connected to those in Karachi who were linked to the ISI (but also the Congress Party). Modi, as a Ghanchi, was- obviously- the guy whose 'oikeiosis' gave him highest interest in managing the fall out 'economically'. That's what he did. Such was his 'artha'. This was not 'rajdharma' but good 'modi' transaction tracking and 'netting out'. 

In 2014, Rahul refused to step up to the plate coz, he says, his Mummy came to him weeping. She may be Italian but she aint stupid. She had noticed that three people with the surname 'Gandhi' had been assassinated in a manner which benefited the Congress Party. So Rahul gave Modi a walkover. The Commies back in the mid Nineties refused to let Jyoti Basu become PM. They wanted to concentrate on 'fighting American Imperialism'. They had no interest in running the country. Thus only the RSS was left as a non-corrupt cadre based organization which could supply enough people to do booth management. Still, the RSS had little traction in Bengal. Only Mamta could beat the Left Front at its own game and then keep beating and killing Commies till they gave up and started voting for Modi. In the recent Assembly election, the Left and Congress lost all their seats. The BJP's tally went from 3 to 77. However, since Mamta's goons are now beating up BJP supporters with vim and vigor, some will defect to the TMC.

 It must be said that few intellectuals- more especially from the South- thought that the Hindu 'Sangh Parivar' could replace as the Communists as the main challenger to the INC. Vajpayee & Advani, somewhat unexpectedly, were able to take over the 'Mandir' cause after Rajiv's assassination. Since 'Mandal' was threatening to turn caste against caste, Hindutva had a clear role in promoting national integrity. But it was only after everyone else had failed to form a stable coalition that they got their chance.

Raji is an economist. She must know that 'credulousness' is linked to Credit- i.e. Currency as solving the problem of double coincidence of wants- and that it must have objective, economic, determinants.

Being brown, she wants to virtue signal about her 'specialness'. Though Indian she has overcome some atavistic tendency to reverence Modi. Toronto should give her tenure and put her in charge of the 'special education' of very special little snowflakes. 

“Let me tell you why I instinctually support Modi. Because the people who are complaining, who are throwing this mud at him, are worth nothing. No matter what he does, everyone will criticize him. They are just waiting for him to make one major mistake and lose his popularity and support. Then, by default, useless nincompoops will get into power. That is what I dread more. The Congress Party.”

This is silly. Congress does not have a candidate. Rahul wants to do what Raji is doing- the guy attended Harvard and has an MPhil from Cambridge- he doesn't want to run the country.  

This dread comes from a conviction that, “Congress is corrupt and has no competence to rule the country.”

They don't have a Prime Ministerial candidate.  

Again, many will agree that corruption was a serious issue during the Congress/UPA regime, and that dynastic rule is not exactly meritocratic. “The problem lies with the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. Nehru was not a democrat. He appointed his daughter as president of the Congress Party.

Not true.  

He disbanded the first democratically elected communist government in Kerala. [Nehru] filled important posts with his trusted circle of elitist, foreign-educated, light-skinned people.

Krishna Menon was dark. The Kaulas of Kashmir have an affinity, not with Namboodris, but the sambandham 'Pillais'. 

He wanted international recognition and acceptance. He did not tolerate dissent or competition. Modi is trying to undo the damage the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty has done to India.”

Modi represents the vernacular languages and a rejection of Cambridge or Ivy League educated Libtard economists. That is perfectly sensible.

In his view, the Modi government represents the first clean break from a millennium of colonial rule. “Hindus and Indians suffer from an extreme inferiority complex.

Sadly, Gandhians suffered from a spiritual superiority complex while Nehru, for some reason, was awfully patronizing to Chou En Lai. Our arrogance was that of the Brahmin mendicant who curses the poor American who refills our begging bowl. 

What others think of us determines our sense of self-worth. One reason for this is our basic philosophy. ‘Vasudeva Kudumbakam’: the whole world is one. Let knowledge come from everywhere and be assimilated to our system and society. We had eight-hundred years of Islamic rule, and another two-hundred years of British rule. English was thrust upon. We lost our Sanskrit. We lost our identity. This realization dawned on me late in life, when I started learning from contemporary scholars—both Indian and non-Indian. Many of them are naturally Hindus.”

KR is getting on years and is taking more interest in his ancestral Religion. It appears that he links it to the cherishing of family and kinship ties- oikeiosis. To show special consideration, loyalty and love for those close to you in blood is considered a good thing. To abandon your kinfolk and the wider community they belong to so as to go off to where you may be materially better off is not, speaking generally, considered a mark of filial piety or eusebia. If the whole world is one, then it is so only in the sense that a family is one and a community is one and a nation is one. Raji does not understand that she is being rebuked. She is unfamiliar with the notion that as one advances in Religion, one's circle of belonging widens. Perhaps she thinks that if the world is one then one should abandon one's own parents so as to go attach oneself to parents or others better suited to serve one's ambitions or desire for wealth.

KR quite rightly observes that Hinduism declined under Turkish and British rulers but began to revive with the beginning of the Independence movement. However, under the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty it began to decline once again. That is why people like Raji and me can't spell 'Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam'. Modi has reversed this trend. That is a good thing for those who believe in Hinduism- i.e. about 80 per cent of the population. It is a very bad thing for those whose virtue signaling consists of being anti-Hindu and anti-Indian. 

He speaks of his early career in 1960s India. “We were trained to be clerks and made to believe that this is all we were good for.

Unless they had joined in the managerial cadre or were hired as engineers or marketing professionals. 

But I knew that the mill manager [in the company where I first worked] had been a blacksmith in Yorkshire. He came here as a manager!

Indian manufacturing failed to thrive because of lack of technical competence on the part of entrepreneurs and managers. Kiran Majumdar Shaw started as a brew-master. She is now a billionaire with her own biotech company. 

Another British export manager didn’t even have a high school graduation. Many of the people that came here to rule us were riffraff. But we weren’t allowed to even think that.”

This is foolish. Back in the Fifties and Sixties, everybody could see for themselves that such firms were being acquired- and run into the ground- by Marwaris etc. Naipaul described his own Brahmin maternal family doing something similar to a Trinidadian plantation they bought. Believe me, back in the early Sixties, the enemy wasn't 'ex-blacksmiths' from Yorkshire (how fucking stupid is Raji if she believes that farriers constituted a substantial class post the First War?) but the shite quality of the Indian entrepreneurial class. But they upped their game. Raji's class did not. Let her rot in Toronto teaching totos with very very special educational needs indeed. 

There was a good reason we TamBrams- who are as stupid as shit- backed first the bania Gandhi and then people like the Old Etonian Commie Kumaramangalam. It really did look as though the guys who gave us a bit of money for doing their domestic or other religious rituals were shite at running a modern industrial enterprise. But, who thinks that now? Nobody. 

In many ways, the people who control Congress strike him as indigenous versions of the Yorkshire mill manager.

Fuck off! If 'blacksmiths' become managers on the basis of earning more money for the company- that's a good thing! KR came into the firm as a clerk. Accountancy and its associated 'ars dictaminis' was his bread and butter. But that bread would be snatched away if Marwaris bought the enterprise and very quickly ran it into the ground.  I know about this. Some 'clerks' of my caste were brought back to the UK by the Managing Agency. Then, Heath came to power. Asset stripping happened. It wasn't till us guys started to do well in IT that- maybe also coz of the increasing hegemony of 'Andhrapreneurs'- we dared raise our heads. 

They are a group of people who have been accorded privilege and power through no merit of their own; and they exude a sense of superiority and self-importance with which they try to mask their own incompetence.

This is mad. A 'black smith' running a textile mill probably has very high competence. A clerk doing so, does not at all. But TamBrams knew that. We raised up Engineering as a Divine pursuit and deprecated the Law once Independence was achieved. Sadly, the stupid economic and educational policies India pursued led to a 'reversion to the mean'- i.e technically qualified guys taking white collar, Government or quasi Government jobs.  

This makes KR contemptuous of their ill-gotten authority. The personal appeal of Modi, then, comes from the fact that he is cut from a different cloth. He was not born into privilege. He is not a blue-blooded Indian. He speaks English with a thick accent.

Wow! Does this cunt really not know that 'big gun' Princes would not be caught dead speaking English? How fucking deracinated and ignorant is she? 

Atal spoke English with 'a thick accent'. Modi speaks Hindi of a type very different from Atal- his is nasal and seeks to suggest a muscular yeoman origin. He has  prevailed. He may actually know quite good English, but like Naveen Patnaik who hasn't learned Oriya, though promising to do so more than twenty years ago when he started to rule that Province, this ignorance works in his favor. 

He had nothing, he was no one,

he has the RSS. Unlike the Congress or Communist movements, this organization has weathered every storm. The same may be true of certain 'Jamaati' or Caste based organizations but the RSS alone is Nationalist.  

and yet, he has risen to the top of the country. He embraces his Indian, working-class origins, and is proud of being the Hindu he is. He carries himself with dignity. One doesn’t have to share all of KR’s positions, but reasonable people can sympathize with many of his sentiments.

No. Reasonable people ignore all sentiments whatsoever. The fact is the libtard hatred of Modi has led to a backlash in his favor. Even deracinated expats of high caste have come to see that attacking Hinduism and attacking elected Indian leaders is bad for us. The assumption will gain ground that we are beasts from a beastly country and religion. Having a confident Indian leader who is identified with Hinduism helps Hindus everywhere. 

If idealization of the leader is one leg, and odium for the current opposition is another, then his recently acquired suspicion of Muslims completes KR’s tripod of support for Modi.

In which country is there no 'suspicion of Muslims' of one stripe or another?  

This third leg is the elephant in the room, because politically-fuelled anti-Muslim sentiment is arguably what catapulted Modi to national office in the first place.

Actually, it was Congress doubling down on anti-Hindu sentiment which doomed them to be a fringe party losing its deposits in Delhi and Bengal etc.  

But it is complicated because KR comes from a family and a region of India that has not been marred by communal tensions, and he counts Muslims among his closest friends.

Look at Sri Lanka. They have had to become 'suspicious of Muslims' because of a terrorist attack meant to devastate their tourism industry. This does not affect personal friendships but it does mean that politicians must no longer play footsie with extreme Islamists so as to secure a few votes. 

Rather than give the topic short shrift, I’ll leave the Muslim question for another essay.

Which will be as shite as this one because it won't admit that Islamist terrorism is a global problem. 

Let me conclude here by saying that listening to KR has made me pessimistic that India’s current crisis spells Modi’s downfall.

An economist knows that choice is about opportunity cost. What is the next best alternative to Modi? We don't know. Rahul is still gun shy and no new national combine has emerged.  

Reverence breeds credulity, which means that Modi’s policy choices will not be questioned.

Nonsense! Policy choices will be questioned but if there is no alternative to Modi then he will remain in office or else, like Indira in 1980, return more firmly to power after a brief spell of anarchy.  

Disdain for Congress and the absence of another viable opposition party means that he will pay no electoral penalty. Suspicion of Muslims persists. In other words, the tripod of his support remains largely intact even as India burns.

India is not burning. Raji's pants are on fire, because she is a big fat liar.

India is a poor country where COVID will run its course. In 1919 there were 14 million deaths out of a population of 300 million. This had no political effects. The death toll may be smaller this time around. But it is India's poverty- not the evil doings of Raji's bete noire- which is responsible. Let us see whether Yogi can do labor reform in UP and whether he can generate jobs. If he can't then Modi has no real successor. Still, Modi has firmly established the idea that poor people can rise by their own efforts all the way to the top of the 'greasy pole'. That is a good thing. Democracy has become stronger in India. The question now is whether it can reform its foolish, paternalistic, laws and regulations. 





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