Neither Modi nor Shah had held legislative or executive power in Delhi before 2014. They have no training in appealing to the diversity of India as represented in Parliament. Their prism is the provincial politics of Gujarat. An exclusive excerpt from Vinay Sitapati's fascinating new book, Jugalbandi: The BJP Before Modi.
He also said that the party "cannot be selective in fighting the communists" and it must do so in all its manifestations, irrespective of religion and colour.
Public intellectuals who frame the ideological antipathy between the RSS & Co and Jawaharlal Nehru in the light of Mahatma Gandhi's assassination and Hindu Raj alone, miss the point by a yard, argues Shaan Kashyap.
Is it a divine, sacrosanct university, a holy cow, prohibiting human intervention?
We have our own problems for sure and they are not trivial, but for now, our economy is in not too bad a shape, our politics is as personality-driven and authoritarian as that of most countries in the world. We must make the best of what we have and not be excessively unhappy looking at the grass on the other side of the septic tank which may not be greener after all!, observes Shreekant Sambrani.
'You can walk wearing the hijab on the street, but not in a school.'
The Congress said the foot march, being led by party leader Rahul Gandhi, will proceed according to its schedule and reach Jammu on Monday afternoon.
'This is what Hindu Rashtra looks like, which has been enabled by conditions of democracy.'
Our government shows a benign mask to the world behind which its fangs are bared against its own citizens, observes Aakar Patel.
'It has taken 7-and-a-half years for this government to understand the fundamentals of economics.' 'If the prime minister wants to leave an imprint, he has to see to it that this succeeds.'
Senior Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Shashi Tharoor will face-off in an electoral contest on Monday for the post of All India Congress Committee chief, as the party gets set to have a non-Gandhi president in over 24 years.
The creation of Telangana will be essentially because people of different regions are not happy with the Nehruvian era's criteria where amongst the many issues language was the basis of creating internal boundaries within India.
The former Congress president said Jawaharlal Nehru, as India's first prime minister, "consolidated democracy and entrenched the basic values of India's polity -- values to which we are still proud to lay claim."
'According to the survey, ideological issues like Article 370 and Ayodhya received only 14 and 12 per cent voter-backing, respectively.' 'It could well imply that hardline Hindutva issues have only that much voter-purchase, compared to Modi's overall popularity of 52 per cent -- putting the man way above the mission,' points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Their idea of unity is uniformity. They disrespect and fear diversity which means they deny our pluralism, our freedom of choice, which are integral to our fundamental rights'
Also, with Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra not in the running for the party president's post, a non-Gandhi would be at the helm after over 24 years following the polling on Monday and counting on Wednesday.
It was Dev Anand's dream to put Indian cinema on the world map and he thought Guide was the perfect film for it.
New Delhi must clearly demonstrate to Beijing that China will pay a price for its relentless strategic undermining of India, says Ajai Shukla.
'They are trying to make the situation bad for Indian Railways so that they can hand it over to private companies.'
'Until India fully absorbs the fundamentals of international relations, it will continue to get evil for good,' says Brahma Chellaney.
'We will be hoisting the tiranga, but this kind of celebration is uncalled for when the farmers in this country are dying by suicides, their families are ravaged by poverty and farmers are not enjoying any freedom.'
India is too diverse to be governed centrally and with a single system. The way forward is for the central government to keep the monopoly of military power and a share of national resources while the provinces must have greater autonomy, recommends Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'Kejriwal tries to project that his party is not Hindu virodhi.'
'The word equity means so much more to the dynamic world India today is in than the word 'socialism'.'
Prime Minister Modi made a strategic blunder of Nehruvian proportions -- presuming no war can happen now, and the Chinese won't be a military threat and risk their economic interests, observes Shekhar Gupta.
'The government has realised that the finances of the government are in a precarious state.' 'We are borrowing to fund the ever-burgeoning revenue deficit.' 'Then you are paying interest on the fresh borrowing.' 'For the first time, the government has realised that this cannot go on.'
'Under the more strident Modi version of Hindutva, Nehru has almost become a contemporary political figure.' 'The ruling party knows that without total erasure and distortion of Nehru, their fantasies will always be wobbly.'
'This is basically aimed at vilifying Nehruvian ideals.' 'Why?' 'Because, Nehruvian leadership is seen by Hindutva forces as the one which did not let them have their Hindu Raj.' 'The Hindutva proponents have always assumed that had Sardar become the first prime minister, India could never have become a secular State,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
A new Congress leader may make an electoral impact by his very presence. Congress voters who had moved away from the party, after being influenced by the BJP's 'family rule' campaign, can now return with a certain moral satisfaction, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Most Indians know very little about Patel which is a great shame.'
'Nehru's inability to take religion seriously as a category led to serious errors of judgement in his dealings with the Muslim League, and later, also with the Hindu right.'
'Parading French troops alongside Indian military personnel, says Rajeev Sharma, turns India's non-alignment policy on its head!'
At war, the Jalashwa can carry and launch a full infantry battalion in a single wave. At peace, the Jalashwa can evacuate 1,000 people in a single trip. Ajai Shukla explains why the Indian Navy's new tender for more ships like the Jalashwa must be treated with special urgency.
The 2019 election gives the Indian public the same choice: Between growth and oligarchs (or, in our case, dynasts and crony capitalists). If we chose wisely, well and good. If not, well, we have the Nehruvian Rate of Growth and massive corruption to fall back on. In a large sense, it is a choice between the India of the Lutyens elites and the Bharat of the real citizen, says Rajeev Srinivasan.
'Why does Mr Modi only attack Nehru from the Dynasty?' 'At one level, it is pure politics,' notes Shekhar Gupta.
By the looks of it, the Congress cannot hope to return to power even in election 2024. What it can do is to start from the bottom, hold organisational elections, which are honest, and co-opt those elected to form teams of office-bearers at all levels, right up to the working committee. By the very nature of the elections that they are going to lose, the party should use the interim to shore up youth power, or whatever remains, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The objective is not to make India into a one religion place, but to ensure that there is harmonious and peaceful co-existence of all faiths with each of them having their cultural personality.'
The capital's ever-shifting power class remains unsettled and unnerved seeing the power, favour, nepotistic and quid pro quo pillared superstructure gradually crumble under Narendra Modi's watch -- the only mantra that seems to be taking centre stage is that of performance, implementation and delivery, says Dr Anirban Ganguly.
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