I think PBM's analysis on the agglomerative effect of regional parties answering the why 'us' question concerning the BJP or any national party still goes a long way in explaining why there's little or no momentum behind the opposition sails. I am still struggling to think of any unifying message that I've heard in the last year or probably will be leading up to the election that will truly galvanise the public into thinking of a vote beyond the BJP.
In this way, there are many things that you could accuse the BJP of doing or not doing but nothing will quite stick and also bring a lot of people together. Weirdly, I think Biden has the same problem in the US where he can go after Trump in many ways but for now, his unifying message seems to be to say that democracy is on the ballot in November.
"Some democracies are built on reconciliation, some trudge on the debris of conscience. Ours will be an outlier to have a formal democratic mechanism decorated with sumptuous erasures."
This is brilliant from Mr Palshikar. One thing that got my attention on this is that the temple-building exercise has tremendous resonance with Hindus from a religious and national pride point of view but the angle that this is India breaking free from some sort of slavery mentality or that it signals that this is yet another occasion of India's arrival at the world stage is far-fetched. If anything, it only reaffirms the thinking across the world that reconciliation is not remotely in the minds of the ruling establishment.
"I am still struggling to think of any unifying message......... vote beyond the BJP."
1. Opposition need extra-economic narrative to begin with... Sugata srinivasaraju has recommended somewhere that Congress should appropriate civilisational narrative delinking it from religion...
2. On economic narrative, firstly Macroeconomic situation is not that bad to force elites to dump the regime.
For have-not , Modi has solid welfarism which is somewhat result of naturally increasing state-capacity .
But one thing clear, Modi govt is based on " tiny & transactional welfarism" in that context Congress should ideally stop copying populist welfarism and advance claim of " transformative & substantive welfarism" ( that is building schools & hospitals) ..
" The Ram whose role in Indian cultural and spiritual life was one whose centre was everywhere and circumference nowhere, has now been anchored to a centre. "
I think, this captures best what they mean by "Rama has arrived" ...
By the way, we should (metaphorically speaking) kill Jairam Ramesh & Rahul Gandhi (if he not be in abroad) post 2024 election defeat ..
I think PBM's analysis on the agglomerative effect of regional parties answering the why 'us' question concerning the BJP or any national party still goes a long way in explaining why there's little or no momentum behind the opposition sails. I am still struggling to think of any unifying message that I've heard in the last year or probably will be leading up to the election that will truly galvanise the public into thinking of a vote beyond the BJP.
In this way, there are many things that you could accuse the BJP of doing or not doing but nothing will quite stick and also bring a lot of people together. Weirdly, I think Biden has the same problem in the US where he can go after Trump in many ways but for now, his unifying message seems to be to say that democracy is on the ballot in November.
"Some democracies are built on reconciliation, some trudge on the debris of conscience. Ours will be an outlier to have a formal democratic mechanism decorated with sumptuous erasures."
This is brilliant from Mr Palshikar. One thing that got my attention on this is that the temple-building exercise has tremendous resonance with Hindus from a religious and national pride point of view but the angle that this is India breaking free from some sort of slavery mentality or that it signals that this is yet another occasion of India's arrival at the world stage is far-fetched. If anything, it only reaffirms the thinking across the world that reconciliation is not remotely in the minds of the ruling establishment.
"I am still struggling to think of any unifying message......... vote beyond the BJP."
1. Opposition need extra-economic narrative to begin with... Sugata srinivasaraju has recommended somewhere that Congress should appropriate civilisational narrative delinking it from religion...
2. On economic narrative, firstly Macroeconomic situation is not that bad to force elites to dump the regime.
For have-not , Modi has solid welfarism which is somewhat result of naturally increasing state-capacity .
But one thing clear, Modi govt is based on " tiny & transactional welfarism" in that context Congress should ideally stop copying populist welfarism and advance claim of " transformative & substantive welfarism" ( that is building schools & hospitals) ..
" The Ram whose role in Indian cultural and spiritual life was one whose centre was everywhere and circumference nowhere, has now been anchored to a centre. "
I think, this captures best what they mean by "Rama has arrived" ...
By the way, we should (metaphorically speaking) kill Jairam Ramesh & Rahul Gandhi (if he not be in abroad) post 2024 election defeat ..