Backfires!

2 September 2019

One of the real issues we have as theorists is how people seldom have the courage to act upon their pet themes. For years, we have had suggestions about almost every thing that Mr Modi has done, discussed hotly in tea shops, in newspaper libraries in street corners and within families on social occasions, firstly because politics was the least controversial and secondly because it inflicted not cost on us, as it was generally never imagined as implemented.
Due to the nature of exposure in my childhood, due to my father’s vocation, I have had the luxury of a bird’s eye view, and so I can claim that Arthakranthi Sansthan, who were votaries for Demonetisation as in replacement of larger denominations with only smaller denominations, were not strange to me when WhatsApp university forwarded their many theses. Like wise, the challenges of ‘Bangladeshi immigration’, of too many public sector banks of small sizes, of how India has too bigger an informal sector in her economy, which is outside the regulatory framework and oversight of tax assessment and revenue assessment, were all issues at one point or the other in the social circles where I grew up.
Even Article 370 was a view that strangely would have been like deliverance, but for how destiny placed me for 3 years amidst the very people of Kashmir, and thankfully the exposure to them through a boss and colleagues steeped in their culture and history first up, through Raja Tarangini and Nand Rishi traditions, Lal Ded, and Shiva lore, the documented visit of Adi Shankaracharya, the mysterious clues that suggesting the visit of Jesus Christ, Avalokiteshwara, and the way Islam itself arrived and mutated in Kashmir was all an eye opener. Reading the movement of Kashmiris for freedom from the Dogra rule, the symbolism about their flag, constitution and how from Islamic Conference the name changed to National Conference was to offer a textured view to the Kashmiri political consciousness. Few are aware of how Persia and Kashmir as a people have shown an affinity to embrace new theology, like cousins, in how the pre Parsee tradition gave way to the Parsee and post that to Islam. Crucially in Kashmir, the nuance was how the transition from Shiva-Sharada to Buddhism to Islam kept pockets of predecessor faiths very much alive and contributory, unlike in Persia where the newer theology swept the past away! Unlike perhaps the rest of Indic civilisations, Kashmir had a written record stretching back to more than a millennia. The Raja Tarangini actually records a Yadava Prince Krishna, making thus for Krishna as a historical figure and not just a mythological one!
But I know people from my own circle of friends and family, who were not gifted with my exposure, who were, I increasingly suspect, of a bent of mind that was always a tad parochial, perhaps even prejudicial, permeating in a bigotry that welled up to the surface with the advent of Modiji in 2014. That is why, in my humble world view, Mr Modi is not responsible for whatever India has unleashed on itself since his advent to Lok Kalyan Marg, as Race Course Road is now known! He simply heralds that India which was always seething within, awaiting an opportunity to express itself, to extract it’s pound of flesh as it were.
So when you see now in 6 years, you may want to give credit to Mr Modi that he has allowed all those fantasies to fructify, some call it settling of scores, others feel that these were long overdue corrections in the course of Indian history, which had unfortunately due to the black mail of Gandhiji and the black magic of Jawaharlal Nehru and his descendants, deviated into what is now derided as ‘sickular’ polity.
So after the demonetisation, the consolidation of banks, the next on the economic agenda is to dilute the powers of the states to be financially independent, because the view is of a powerful central treasury with provincial units merely conducting accounts and audits, leaving budgeting and provisions to the central authority. These are easier to bring about, if the tax collections were to be allowed to fall into one basket which is called GST, and which will first be collected centrally, then redistributed to the provinces. It comes from the Indian HUF experience, that one who controls the ‘tijori’( currency chest) controls the family. If you saw older generation movies, the matron would have this key dangling from her saree tip, worn like a badge of power! So demonetisation short circuited the entire maze of hyper local and regional currency market, by rendering their tender illegal, forcing them to deposit their entire cash with which they turned around the wheels of the informal sector. The mammoth effort to open accounts, to supply subsidies directly to Jan Dhan accounts was embraced by the new regime, because it fitted with it’s broader strategic goal of centralised and formalised economy. If it inadvertently meant breaking the back of the informal sector so be it. So with such a stated aim, demonetisation was an unqualified success. It broke the back of cooperative banks, small NBFCs, local money operations through pawn brokers, temple and religious institutions and trusts, and all in one fell swoop!
Likewise the 370 move also was meant to remove the fig leaf the Kashmiris clung on to in their provincial pride. It is meant to show the proud Kashmiris their place, as ordinary and less than Indian, beholden to Indian placement! The euphemism of Israeli tactics, of muscular diplomacy, of ‘chicken biryani’ was all meant to provide substantial subtext for people to mull and munch on! The resonance of settlements is rich in the context of both Israel and this view of Kashmir as prime real estate, now unbundled.
Likewise now the NRC in Assam, was meant to disenfranchise the majority of the Assamese Muslim population, who were assumed to be illegal Bangladeshis, and the biggest shocker for the Hindutva nationhood is that out of some 20 lakh people, (* 2 Million Declared Stateless from the original 4 Million shortlisted some months back in Assam) 13 lakh were Hindu. This has got their goat. Just as now the GDP figures of the government itself at 5%! That the government helped itself to a massive ₹ 1.76 lakh crore dose as stimulus from the RBI through surplus transfer, which is closer to what late Mr Jaitley had been hankering after from RBI to make up for the shortfall in revenues and tax collections for the Central Government after demonetisation and further from what the RBI was willing to part with is something they are unlikely to connect just now. ( Mr Jaitley sought ₹ 3 lakh crore, RBI was willing to part with ₹ 0.75-1 Lakh Crore)
The economic crises has seen more of a reticent Prime Minister Modi and a vocal though feeble former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh. The moves on Kashmir have seen Mr Modi again play a behind the scenes role, with Mr Amit Shah playing it stellar upfront. I will never tire of saying this, that left to his own devices, Mr Modi would have never wasted his political capital on any of these measures- Demonetisation, Article 370, NRC Assam, and those to follow- the Uniform Civil Code, Ram Mandir, Citizenship norms, reorganisation of constituencies for Lok Sabha and for individual State Assemblies, which will be demographic and ensure further whittling down of the political presence of Muslims, making them irrelevant to the democratic charade of electioneering as a vote bank!
Seeds for these changes were laid in my childhood. The only opposition to this is a combination of economic pain and mystic Gandhian lore, which today is only represented unfortunately by Mr Rahul Gandhi. Efforts are on to dilute the former, by mounting environmental causes on his name, making his politics less relevant to our present context and place, while the later has been ridiculed and pilloried into oblivion from the Hindi heartland and ejected from the power centre of his own Congress party, which in any case, is merely a shadow of what it once was!

So don’t look at backfires like economic slow down, or international pressures on Kashmir or agitational politics over the NRC in Assam to give you alternatives. There is a larger momentum to what is happening now, which can get uncoupled only by a ‘fairy tale resurgence of Gandhian values and miraculous acceptance of its sole champion now- Mr Rahul Gandhi’! Oh Yes! We know the odds on that one!