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Showing posts with label BJP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BJP. Show all posts

Thursday, July 17, 2025

The Bihar Equation: Why Prashant Kishor Must Embrace the Bipolar Reality and Lead the NDA



The Bihar Equation: Why Prashant Kishor Must Embrace the Bipolar Reality and Lead the NDA

At this critical juncture in Bihar’s political evolution, Prashant Kishor finds himself on the cusp of history. Yet the very instincts that made him one of India’s sharpest political strategists now risk becoming the reason for his political irrelevance — unless he reorients himself to face a truth he seems reluctant to accept: India is a de facto two-party system, and Bihar is no exception.

The Bipolar Reality of Indian Politics

India may be home to hundreds of political parties, but at the national level, it is increasingly a binary contest — the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by the BJP, and the INDIA bloc (formerly UPA), led by the Congress and regional allies. This binary structure is mirrored in most states, including Bihar. To dismiss this reality is not strategic independence; it is political naivety.

Prashant Kishor’s current stance — staying aloof from both poles — may be ideologically noble, but electorally fatal. Voters want clarity. They want to know whether a vote for Jan Suraaj will result in governance or mere symbolism. At the moment, Jan Suraaj is neither the head of a third front nor poised to replace an existing pole. It’s a floating island in a polarized sea.

Nitish Kumar Has Had His Time

Let’s be clear: Nitish Kumar’s legacy is not trivial. He brought governance back into the vocabulary of Bihar politics. But 20 years is a long time in public life, and his party, the JD(U), is a pale shadow of its former self. His era is over — what Bihar needs now is a fresh start, not a tired redux.

If Prashant Kishor’s ambition is to lead Bihar, he must position himself not merely as an alternative but as the inevitable next Chief Minister. That means recognizing that politics is a game of alliances, pragmatism, and majorities — not just vision.

Rahul Gandhi’s Trap: Symbolism Without Power

Refusing both pre-poll and post-poll alliances is not political independence — it's electoral suicide. It’s a path Rahul Gandhi has walked again and again, contesting elections with conviction but without power, losing battles while refusing to fight wars. Prashant Kishor does not have the fallback of dynasty. He will not be granted repeated chances by voters. It’s now or never.

A Strategic Realignment with the NDA

The INDIA alliance in Bihar already has a declared CM face: Tejashwi Yadav. The NDA, in contrast, presents an opportunity — they have numbers, but no clear leadership. Kishor, having worked closely with both Narendra Modi and Nitish Kumar in the past, has the credibility and experience to fill that vacuum.

A pre-poll alliance between Jan Suraaj, BJP, JD(U), and smaller parties could be the masterstroke that delivers both a double-engine sarkar and a two-thirds legislative majority. A possible seat-sharing arrangement could look like this:

  • Jan Suraaj: 130 seats

  • BJP: 40 seats

  • JD(U): 30 seats

  • LJP & others: 10–20 seats

The understanding would be that in the subsequent Lok Sabha elections, the BJP leads in seat count for Bihar — say BJP 20, Jan Suraaj 10, JD(U) 5, and others the rest.

The Three-Point Path to Power

To summarize, here is the winning formula for Prashant Kishor:

  1. A Pre-Poll Alliance with the NDA, with Jan Suraaj as the dominant partner and Prashant Kishor as the consensus CM candidate.

  2. Projecting PK as the Face of the Alliance, offering freshness, capability, and a break from legacy politics.

  3. A 10-Point Governance Program, focused on economic development, healthcare, education, employment, law and order, irrigation, digital infrastructure, urban planning, panchayat empowerment, and anti-corruption.

A Grand Opportunity for Bihar

Bihar deserves more than being a stepping stone for legacy politicians or a testing ground for idealists. It needs transformative governance. With a pre-poll alliance that balances BJP’s national clout and Jan Suraaj’s regional energy, Bihar can move beyond caste arithmetic to performance politics.

Prashant Kishor doesn’t need to compromise his principles — just his isolation. A new NDA under his leadership could be a clean break from the past and a powerful coalition for the future.

Modi is not anti-Gandhi. JD(U) is not fully saffron. The space exists — and it’s Prashant Kishor’s for the taking.

But history doesn’t wait for hesitation. The time to decide is now.



बिहार का समीकरण: प्रशांत किशोर को द्विध्रुवीय राजनीतिक वास्तविकता को स्वीकार कर NDA का नेतृत्व करना चाहिए

बिहार की राजनीति इस समय एक निर्णायक मोड़ पर खड़ी है। प्रशांत किशोर के पास इतिहास रचने का मौका है, लेकिन जो राजनीतिक सूझ-बूझ उन्हें भारत का सबसे तेज़ रणनीतिकार बनाती रही है, वही अब उनकी प्रासंगिकता को ख़तरे में डाल सकती है — अगर वे इस सच्चाई को स्वीकार नहीं करते कि भारत एक वास्तविकता में द्विदलीय (two-party) प्रणाली बन चुका है। और बिहार भी इससे अछूता नहीं है।

भारत की द्विध्रुवीय राजनीतिक सच्चाई

भारत में भले ही सैकड़ों पार्टियाँ हों, लेकिन राष्ट्रीय स्तर पर राजनीति अब दो ध्रुवों के बीच सिमट गई है — NDA (नेशनल डेमोक्रेटिक अलायंस) जिसका नेतृत्व भाजपा करती है, और INDIA गठबंधन, जिसमें कांग्रेस और कई क्षेत्रीय दल शामिल हैं। यह दो-ध्रुवीय संरचना राज्यों तक भी पहुंच गई है, और बिहार इसका स्पष्ट उदाहरण है।

इस सच्चाई को नकारना रणनीतिक स्वतंत्रता नहीं, बल्कि राजनीतिक भ्रम है। मतदाता स्पष्टता चाहते हैं — उन्हें जानना है कि जन सुराज को वोट देने से सरकार बनेगी या सिर्फ़ बयानबाज़ी होगी। इस समय जन सुराज न तो तीसरा मोर्चा बना सका है, न ही किसी एक ध्रुव को चुनौती दे पा रहा है। यह एक तैरता हुआ द्वीप बन गया है, जिसमें ठोस ज़मीन नहीं है।

नीतीश कुमार का युग अब समाप्त होना चाहिए

नीतीश कुमार ने बिहार की राजनीति में प्रशासन को एक बार फिर प्रमुख मुद्दा बनाया, यह उनकी उपलब्धि है। लेकिन दो दशक एक लंबा वक्त होता है। उनकी पार्टी अब अपनी पुरानी छाया मात्र है। अब समय आ गया है कि वे सम्मानपूर्वक राजनीति से संन्यास लें और बिहार को नए नेतृत्व के लिए खुला छोड़ें।

अगर प्रशांत किशोर सच में मुख्यमंत्री बनना चाहते हैं, तो उन्हें खुद को विकल्प नहीं बल्कि अगला मुख्यमंत्री साबित करना होगा। और इसका मतलब है — समझौते, गठबंधन, और सत्ता की गणना को समझना।

राहुल गांधी की गलती: सत्ता से दूर प्रतीकात्मक राजनीति

पूर्व और पश्च चुनावी गठबंधन को नकारना कोई महान आदर्श नहीं — यह राजनीतिक आत्महत्या है। यही रास्ता राहुल गांधी ने अपनाया है — हार पर हार के बाद भी बस प्रतीक बनते रहना। लेकिन प्रशांत किशोर के पास नेहरू-गांधी वंश का सहारा नहीं है। जनता उन्हें बार-बार अवसर नहीं देगी। यह समय निर्णायक है।

NDA के साथ रणनीतिक समझौता ही सफलता की कुंजी

INDIA गठबंधन ने पहले ही अपने मुख्यमंत्री पद के चेहरे के रूप में तेजस्वी यादव को प्रस्तुत कर दिया है। इसके विपरीत NDA के पास संख्या तो है, लेकिन नेतृत्व का अभाव है। किशोर, जो पहले मोदी और नीतीश — दोनों के साथ काम कर चुके हैं — NDA के लिए स्वाभाविक और प्रभावशाली विकल्प हो सकते हैं।

एक पूर्व-चुनावी गठबंधन, जिसमें जन सुराज, भाजपा, जेडीयू और अन्य छोटे दल हों, बिहार को एक दो इंजन की सरकार और प्रशांत किशोर को दो-तिहाई बहुमत दिला सकता है।

संभावित सीट बंटवारा:

  • जन सुराज: 130 सीटें

  • भाजपा: 40 सीटें

  • जेडीयू: 30 सीटें

  • लोजपा व अन्य छोटे दल: 10–20 सीटें

साथ ही एक स्पष्ट समझ बन सकती है कि आगामी लोकसभा चुनावों में भाजपा को बिहार से सबसे अधिक सीटें मिलेंगी — उदाहरणतः भाजपा 20, जन सुराज 10, जेडीयू 5, अन्य 5।

सत्ता तक पहुँचने का त्रि-सूत्रीय फॉर्मूला

प्रशांत किशोर के लिए विजयी योजना इस प्रकार हो सकती है:

  1. पूर्व-चुनावी गठबंधन — NDA के साथ, जिसमें जन सुराज प्रमुख भागीदार हो और किशोर NDA के मुख्यमंत्री पद के उम्मीदवार हों।

  2. प्रशांत किशोर को चेहरा बनाना — जो पारंपरिक राजनीति से अलग, एक नई उम्मीद का प्रतीक हो।

  3. 10 सूत्रीय कार्यक्रम — जिसमें शिक्षा, स्वास्थ्य, रोज़गार, कानून-व्यवस्था, भ्रष्टाचार मुक्ति, सिंचाई, डिजिटल इंफ्रास्ट्रक्चर, शहरी विकास, पंचायत सशक्तिकरण और आर्थिक विकास पर स्पष्ट योजनाएँ हों।

बिहार के लिए एक सुनहरा अवसर

बिहार अब प्रतीकों या जातिगत समीकरणों की राजनीति से ऊपर उठना चाहता है। अब समय आ गया है कि प्रदर्शन की राजनीति को प्राथमिकता मिले। भाजपा की राष्ट्रीय शक्ति और जन सुराज की क्षेत्रीय ऊर्जा का तालमेल बिहार को एक नया भविष्य दे सकता है।

प्रशांत किशोर को अपने सिद्धांतों से समझौता नहीं करना है — सिर्फ़ अलगाववाद छोड़ना है। NDA का एक नया संस्करण, उनके नेतृत्व में, अतीत से एक निर्णायक विराम और भविष्य के लिए एक शक्ति-संपन्न गठबंधन बन सकता है।

मोदी गांधी-विरोधी नहीं हैं। जेडीयू पूरी तरह भगवा नहीं है। राजनीतिक जगह मौजूद है — और वह प्रशांत किशोर के लिए खुली है।

लेकिन इतिहास अवसर का इंतज़ार नहीं करता। निर्णय का समय आ गया है।



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Lalu Prasad Yadav: The Paradox of Indian Politics – A Railway Miracle, a Bihar Tragedy
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Can Bihar Become a Hub for Textiles and Electronics? Exploring the Scope for Labor-Intensive Industries
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Thursday, April 16, 2020

What Could Work In India

Shutting the entire country down at once was an excellent decision grounded in science and economic realities, the least expensive decision, but an incomplete decision. Not shutting down was clearly not an option.

Testing is not an option in India. The large scale testing required to reopen the country simply is not on the table right now, or even in the near term.

The first priority has to be to feed people, now that they are in their homes. The entire development budget is frozen anyways. Redirect as much of that as necessary to feed people. Reward them for staying home by delivering food to their homes.

Three weeks are enough time for the infected to get symptomatic. Anyone with cold and cough is not necessarily infected but will have to be assumed so for now. They should be encouraged to self-identify and isolate themselves further inside their homes. If there is a third symptom -- fever -- that self-isolation should be more strictly enforced. But if the three symptoms are persistent and the fourth symptom -- shortness of breath -- also shows up, chances are the fifth and the sixth also will: loss of the sense of taste and major pain. That is guaranteed infection. The government must by then have erected tent hospitals in every village. Commandeer factories to manufacture tents at a rapid clip, not necessarily ventilators. The New York story has been 80% of those who end up on the ventilator never come back. They don't make it.

Inhaling steam and drinking hot water seems to work in many early-stage cases. At the cold and cough stages that should be encouraged through mass education campaigns.

Modi and Imran should hold an emergency video summit and call a complete ceasefire and truce and agree to recognize the LOC (Line Of Control) as the permanent border now and until further notice and take their armies away from the border and into their villages: to direct distribute food, to erect tent hospitals, to maintain law and order. These, as well as other first responders and health care workers, should be the first in line for testing. Should you end up infected while serving, you should be isolated immediately.

Lady police officers should be deployed to reach out to domestic abuse and domestic violence victims. Tent shelters should be erected for those in need.

Hopefully, by then India will have figured out a way to implement large scale testing to gradually reopen the economy. It is okay if that is a few months away. In the meantime, keep people in their homes and keep feeding them.

This is the least expensive option. Carried out well, when the economy reopens, there should be a V-shaped recovery. India might even see double digit growth rates in the rebound. Otherwise more people will die in this pandemic than if there were nuclear war between India and Pakistan.

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Friday, February 28, 2020

The Pogrom In Delhi

The message from the BJP is clear: Elect whomever you like. We are still in power. Call the police; they work for us. Appeal to the courts; we’ll neutralize any judges who don’t toe our line. Continue to dissent, and we will set the mob on you.
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Monday, January 13, 2020

Modi's Bad Economic Performance





Indian Prime Minister Modi's Lawless Reign of Terror Narendra Modi relies on private militants allied with his party to crack down on dissent. ...... recent events suggest that the real Gujarat Model that Modi had in mind was something else entirely: a government that looks the other way as private militants violently attack disfavored groups. ...... the growing youth resistance against his "papers, please" citizenship law. ...... On Sunday evening, January 5, 40 to 50 hoodlums, mostly men but also a few women, faces partially wrapped in scarfs, armed with clubs, iron rods, and sledgehammers, stormed the campus. Eyewitness accounts and video footage suggest that several of these people were members of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), a student union associated with Modi's party. They approached a group of students protesting a sudden, massive fee hike and began thrashing them. They bloodied the student president, Aishe Ghosh, and many others.......... Then, chanting that the students were traitors who deserve to be shot for opposing the administration, the attackers barged into dorm rooms and went on a rampage, taking care to spare rooms that sported ABVP posters. Muslim students were of course fair game. And so was a blind Hindu student, a Sanskrit scholar and a student of Hinduism no less, whose wall sported a picture of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, India's reformist founding father. (Ambedkar has fallen from grace in pro-Modi circles because he was a vigorous opponent of the caste system and other regressive Hindu practices and because his ideas are fueling the constitutional case against Modi's Hindu nationalism.) ....... JNU's vice-chancellor, who is appointed by the central government, failed to mobilize campus security to stop the mayhem. The Delhi police, which is under the command of the Modi government rather than local authorities, ignored the frantic calls of students for over an hour. A veritable battalion of cops was standing right outside the campus gates, but not a single one went in to stop the attack. The cops even stood by as ambulances were vandalized right in front of them. ......... law enforcement standing by as private militants allied with the ruling party go on a violent spree, criminalizing the victims, spreading disinformation to confuse the public—was Modi's modus operandi in Gujarat. .......... A few weeks ago, cops appeared to vandalize Jamia Millia University, a Muslim institution in New Delhi. Modi's comrade, Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, went even further. His police showed up at Aligarh Muslim University and roughed up students protesting Modi's faith-cleansing policies that would strip an untold number of Indian Muslims of citizenship. ........... no one outside of Modi's band of merry brothers is safe in India anymore. All of India is Gujarat now. Dissent is out. Violence is in........ As one poster at a protest noted: "First AMU. Then JNU. Next You."

PM Modi, Amit Shah misled people on CAA, NRC: Sonia Gandhi The nation has watched in horror at the "BJP-orchestrated assault" on JNU after what happened in Jamia, BHU, Allahabad university and AMU

'Challenge PM To Tell Students Why Economy A Basket Case': Rahul Gandhi Congress MP Rahul Gandhi today said he challenges Prime Minister Narendra Modi to go to universities and tell students what he will do to improve the economy. ....... in a blow to opposition unity, six key parties - including the Trinamool Congress, BSP, Shiv Sena, DMK and the Samajwadi Party - are skipping the meet. Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party said it was not even invited for the meeting.

What Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Said About Amended Citizenship Law Satya Nadella's comment was backed by noted historian Ramachandra Guha, who wished that big names in the Indian IT industry would summon the "courage" to make a similar statement. ....... "I think what is happening is sad... It's just bad....

I would love to see a Bangladeshi immigrant who comes to India and creates the next unicorn in India

or becomes the next CEO of Infosys" ....... A group of over 150 Indian-origin professionals employed with tech giants such as Google, Uber, Amazon and Facebook had earlier written an open letter against the Citizenship Amendment Act and a possible nationwide National Register of Citizens, dubbing both the initiatives as "fascist". ........ "The CAA 2019 combined with the NRC is a deeply anti-Muslim scheme that will create greater statelessness and global disparity for Muslims, growing worse with India's economic decline and climate change" ...... The United Nations Human Rights Office has also termed the amended law as "fundamentally discriminatory", saying that it "undermines" the commitment to equality enshrined in the Indian constitution....... BJP MP Tejasvi Surya has clamed that only "illiterates and puncture-wallahs" are opposed to the amended Citizenship Act.

The attacks on two Delhi universities reveal Modi’s targets: Muslims and their allies the police remained decorously outside the gates of

Jawaharlal Nehru University, India’s most well known, cordoning off the campus as masked goons armed with iron rods and improvised bludgeons ran riot inside.

They broke into a hostel reserved for women students, inflicted head injuries on the president of JNU’s student union, who is a woman, and attacked faculty members who tried to protect them. Some 20 students and teachers were hospitalised. After three hours of thuggery the police entered the university at the vice-chancellor’s belated invitation but made no arrests because the criminals had mysteriously slipped away despite the police cordon. ....... Jamia and JNU are centrally funded universities that have attracted the violent displeasure of Modi’s government for different but related reasons. Taken together, these reasons define the ruling Bharatiya Janata party’s majoritarian project – its reason for being. ......... The NRC is the citizenship act’s evil twin; those who aren’t able to document their claim to being Indian before the tribunals of the NRC will be cast into limbo – but non-Muslims among them can hope to be rescued by the CAA’s amnesty. ...... Jamia was brazenly attacked by the police of this would-be Hindu nation because the government was confident that making a violent example of a Muslim university would play well in public. ........ the assault galvanised Muslims all over the country into spontaneous and sustained resistance to the CAA and NRC ...... the police atrocities in Jamia led to huge demonstrations of solidarity in colleges and universities all over India and sparked a fire of resistance, against the furtive bigotry of the CAA, which continues to burn. .......... The BJP has long believed that its anti-Muslim project has two enemies: Muslims, and those non-Muslims who see Muslims as equal citizens under the constitution. The Delhi police made an example of Jamia as a warning to India’s Muslims. When that didn’t go according to plan, the same police travelled several miles across the city to help make an example of a university that the BJP sees as the institutional incarnation of the secularism that might yet thwart its dreams of a Hindu nation. Since majoritarian parties are constitutionally incapable of empathy, the BJP understands JNU’s brand of secular solidarity as a form of Hindu self-hatred. ......... the BJP’s loathing of the university is obsessive and wildly out of proportion to the threat that its students and teachers pose.



Is the Indian economy headed for a middle-income trap? Once promising economies like Mexico, Brazil, or Turkey could never attain the prosperity of western Europe or Japan, because they fell into what experts call the “middle-income trap.” ....... a sustained economic slowdown following a period of strong growth. ...... “We will be a Brazil, we will be a South Africa” but will never replicate the growth trajectories of China, or South Korea ....... “No country which has been in (a middle-income trap) has been able to come out of it.” ......

India’s economy is facing a structural slowdown.

....... India won’t even become an upper middle-income country (per capita income between $3,896-12,055) by the 2030s ......

Escaping the middle-income trap requires serious reforms such as flexible land and labour laws. The Narendra Modi government, on the other hand, is obsessed with furthering its political agenda

....... The economic reforms that India unleashed in 1991 led to a period of strong growth lifting millions out of poverty and increasing the size of the economy by almost nine times in about 30 years. ....... there was no mass shift from farm to factories. India failed to create a robust manufacturing sector, which today accounts for less than 17% of the economic output. ........ forcing a staggering 81% of the workforce to be employed in the informal sector. ....... The manufacturing sector, though, is most important because it is labour-intensive. ...... implementing

land and labour reforms

to bring capital costs down...... the primary fixes that would ensure India does not fall into the middle-income trap. ....... India’s declining investment rates, high levels of capital concentration in the corporate sector, and lack of good infrastructure access are deeply concerning indicators. ......... long-term structural reforms and provision of better social security to people ...... unequal income distribution is another key driver of the middle-income trap and suggests higher investments in human capital to escape it. ........ India at a lowly 115th out of 157 countries in its Global Human Capital Index rankings ..... “No country has moved to high-income category without taking care of these bottlenecks.”



After years of falling, poverty in India may have risen again since GST and demonetisation Poverty and malnutrition in India may have increased substantially in 2017-18, leading to a fall in consumer spending in the country for the first time in over four decades. ...... The fall in overall consumption (by 3.7%) in 2017-18 is the first since the 1972-73 global oil crisis ........ “In the last five decades at least, there has never been a period that consumption expenditure in real terms has declined. This data clearly shows that poverty levels would have gone up substantially. A back of the envelope calculation would suggest that the percentage of population in poverty would have gone up by at least 10 percentage points.” ........ In 2011-12, the share of India’s population living below the poverty line stood at 22%, much lower than the 30% recorded two years earlier, and 37% recorded in 2004-05 ...... NSO’s current findings suggest these gains may have been nearly offset by 2017-18. ........ consumers were penny-pinching on not only clothing, education, and rent but even food. ....... Rural consumers spent an average of Rs580 ($8) per month on food in 2017-18, down 10% from Rs643 in 2011-12. Urban consumers, on the other hand, spent Rs946 on average on food, nearly the same (Rs943) as in 2011-12. ........ The country’s GDP growth stood at a six-year low of 5% in April-June 2019. ......

these wounds may have been self-inflicted. The survey was conducted between July 2017 and June 2018, coinciding with the rollout of the goods and services tax (GST) and came a few months after demonetisation.

........ In 2017-18, India’s unemployment rate stood at a 45-year high of 6.1%

India’s economic slump is far too deep to be tackled with mere tinkering of interest rates
Modi inherits a troubled economy—all credit goes to him

India Has Worst Economy In 42 Years. Is Prime Minister Modi Watching?

The only real debate about India’s economy is exactly when things were as bad as they are in 2020.

...... Modi rose to power in 2014 promising to supersize the “Gujarat model” that brought him to national prominence. His 14 years running that western state morphed Modi into a folk hero. On his watch, Gujarat often produced growth faster than the national average, fewer regulations, better infrastructure and less corruption. Voters elected Modi to bring those policies to New Delhi. ....... The populist did put some wins on the scoreboard. Modi announced plans to cut bureaucracy and opened sectors like aviation, defense and insurance to increased foreign investment. Passing a national goods-and-services tax was no small feat. Then Modi largely rested on his laurels, shelving deeper reforms amid healthy global growth. ....... India would be growing faster if Modi had acted more boldly to upend vested interests. Modi, for example, punted on the truly epochal reforms India needs to compete and become more inclusive: changes to laws on labor, land and taxation. The government slow-walked efforts to clean up a banking system awash in bad loans. ....... Then there are the self-inflicted wounds. A poorly executed move to take all high-denomination banknotes from circulation to attack graft shoulder-checked the economy. A botched GST rollout confused corporate chieftains and actually depressed tax revenues. ........ Modi the populist rabble-rouser will dominate his second term, not the economic change agent most voters wanted. ....... Will that support be there, though, if Modi’s distraction delivers a “Hindu rate of growth” instead? The reference here is to the low annual growth rates India produced prior to a liberalization push in 1991. .......

India isn’t where Modi boosters thought it would be in 2020.

..... the political equivalent of human nature: it’s always easier to add liquidity than remove barriers to growth and efficiency. Look no further than the Philippines and South Korea these days. Yet all that largess takes the onus off India’s banks, particularly state-owned ones, to write down distressed assets.

Modi's Self-Destructive Behavior

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Thursday, January 09, 2020

Modi's Self-Destructive Behavior

Modi traveled the world. It felt like he was always on a plane to somewhere. When he landed in Delhi, it was for a few days of rest before he took off again. He held monstrous rallies of Indians around the world. Donald Trump never held a bigger rally inside the United States. And all that exposure added to India's soft power. Modi became the most popular politician in the world. After long decades India again had one party that could get a majority in the parliament on its own. Ideology aside, that means some stability. He even took action on Ease Of Doing Business, and India rose up in the ranks. FDI was on the uptick.

I have tried very hard to see the good in Modi. His rise from his humble background to the top office in India is noteworthy. I bought into what I thought was his laser focus on development issues when he ran in 2014. I do think he is personally incorruptible. But then that was also true of his predecessor, Dr. Manmohan Singh. Singh was never accused of having taken any bribes. Personally, he was not. His cabinet was another story. In Modi's case, he seems to have an iron grip on his cabinet, and the anti-corruption aura extends beyond him.

The jury is still out on demonetization. And the implementation of the GST (Goods and Services Tax) has seen much criticism. Done right, that was supposed to unify the Indian market. I don't have enough data on what actually happened.

Even before he made his Kashmir move, I am on record at this very blog saying the key to peace between India and Pakistan is to have two Kashmirs, just like there are two Punjabs. There is a Punjab in India. There is a Punjab in Pakistan. Turn the Line Of Control (LOC) into the permanent border and open up trade. So, obviously, I am not opposed to the idea of turning Kashmir into just another state in India. But I say, what a lost opportunity. If this move would have been made after summit meetings between Imran Khan and Narendra Modi, the region would have seen peace instead of the turmoil we are now seeing.

Article 370 I don't want to comment on too much. What did bother me a lot was that Kashmir was turned into an open-air prison in the aftermath. I was in disbelief.

And now this. India is convulsing. The country has been shaken to its roots. The citizenship amendment act is poorly worded, harshly implemented. And the entire world is watching. All the soft power Modi earned for India through his years of travels has evaporated, and it will show in the FDI numbers. And the tanking economy is not helping either. Modi has already had a very bad year politically. He has lost state after state. He lost Maharashtra where he lost his biggest and oldest ally, the Shiv Sena. I think that is what he is looking at in 2024. The non-BJP parties will come together to throw up a non-Congress prime minister.

Just like Kashmir done right would have given South Asia lasting peace and a major regional trade boost, granting citizenship to refugees is how a large, generous democracy enhances its soft power around the world. How about starting with the Rohingya! They just might be the most talked-about refugees in the world right now.

Modi and his team have been proving his critics right. Imran Khan has been shouting like a mad man accusing the BJP and the RSS of 1930s style fascism. And to Imran Modi gives the citizenship amendment act and the national registry of citizens. That is straight from the Nazi party book in the 1930s. The Nazis also sought to "protect" German minorities in neighboring countries. They also put together a "national registry of citizens."

Modi has squandered his impressive electoral mandate. It is all downhill from here for Modi, especially since there seems to be no hint of course correction.

I hope Prashant Kishor is the next Prime Minister of India.

The ABC (Anti BJP Coalition) already has 62% of the votes in the country, it just needs a proper organizational structure. By joining the coalition, a party agrees to one post one candidate at all levels, and it agrees to the decisions of a steering committee in which each party's strength is the number of MPs it has. There is no lack of money, there is no lack of votes, there is no lack of vision, there is no lack of strategy. Only this structure is missing. Sonia Gandhi can be Convenor.



India: Democracy Itself Is At Stake
India At A Turning Point
Arundhati Roy On India
Indian Citizenship Bill Protests: The Distrust Is Wide And Deep
India Citizenship Bill Debate (2)
India Citizenship Bill Debate
Biometric ID And Citizenship Solutions
India's Contentious Citizenship Amendment Bill
Has India Gone Crazy?
Step By Step To Solving The Big Problems
History In Fast Forward Motion Right Now
Kashmir Deserves Normalcy
News: Modi, Trump, Andrew Yang, Iran, Kamala Harris
Indian Democracy: Maharashtra Edition
India's Massive Unemployment Problem: China Actually Knows
Formula For Peace Between Israel And Palestine
The Stupidity Of The Ayodhya Dispute
Saudi-Iran: Imran Is The Only One Who Can
Can't Stop Water To Pakistan
New Capitalism Is Techno Capitalism, Hello Marc
The Nation State In Peril
Imran's Peace Gamble In Afghanistan
South Asians Working In The Gulf

I think something like this is possible for 2024.

2024: Possible Lok Sabha Composition

BJP: 150

Anti-BJP Coalition (ABC):
Congress: 60
JD (U): 50 (25 in Bihar, 25 outside Bihar)
Trianmool Congress: 40
Shiv Sena: 20
LJP (Paswan): 6
RJD: 10
AIADMK: 20
DMK: 15
YSR Congress: 20
BJD: 20
BSP: 30
SP: 30
NCP: 10
CPI (M): 10
TRS: 10
TDP: 5
AAP: 4
Total: 360
Others: 33

























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