[GreenYouth] Yogi Adityanath, not demonetisation, is PM Modi’s biggest blunder, writes Shekhar Gupta
[<> (Introductory comment, dtd. March 18 2017, to the post: 'The New UP CM, Yogi Adityanath: Two Accounts: Who He Is?' at < https://www.mail-archive.com/greenyouth@googlegroups.com/msg20567.html>.) Compare this with the following extract from the sl. no. I below: <> The one at sl. no. II below also offers view pretty similar to that of Shekhar Gupta. Both, in a way, acknowledge that Yogi poses a threat to Modi himself, like no other from the BJP ranks. (Not even Rajnath Singh or Nitin Gadkari.) This is the aspect, I had anticipateded - "such a high "risk"", in my comment when Yogi was chosen as the Chief Minister of the most populous state - with the highest number (80) parliamentary seats. The only plausible explanation was that it's reflective of the BJP's gameplan to resort to Hindutva in the forthcoming LS poll in a big big way. And, Shekhar Gupts appears to be damn right when he says that while Yogi is very effective in energising the core, he's quite incapable of bringing in votes from the peripheries. The current round of state polls very well substantiate that. But, this principle will hold till the energy of the core reaches a certain threshold level. Once that level is breached, even the peripheries would start getting sucked in. Moreover, the resignation of Urjit Patel indicates that the regime is bent upon to raid the reserve funds of the RBI, in order to do, to borrow a Bengali Hindu metaphor, a "Harir Loot" - to shower sops all around, regardless of its implications beyond the immediate. (In a way, quite mirroring the utterly monstrous "demonetisation".) No precise idea what are, if at all, the remaining hurdles. The latest state polls also indicate that the fight against the incumbent evil regime, even otherwise, is not going to be just a cakewalk. Of course, the air of despondency, post the UP poll, has pretty well been blown away. Sukla ] I/II. https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/opinion-yogi-adityanath-not-demonetisation-is-pm-modi-s-biggest-blunder-writes-shekhar-gupta/story-QrnLrly2gnOm3bTbprZYpK.html?fbclid=IwAR1E8gl6KRhUb1QDdSeee2LO_WFNOMVeHox0WhpEqZ7DbLoiq4TlgxJPHhE Opinion: Yogi Adityanath, not demonetisation, is PM Modi’s biggest blunder, writes Shekhar Gupta Even if it paid rich dividends in Uttar Pradesh elections soon after, Modi erred in gifting away that incredible success to Yogi Adityanath who no one had voted for. Demonetisation broke his government’s economic momentum. Yogi Adityanath may wreck his immediate political future. Updated: Dec 10, 2018 17:34 IST Shekhar Gupta PM Modi and Yogi Adityanath as he was sworn-in as the Uttar Pradesh Chief minister(HT File Photo) There is a wise Punjabi metaphor that applies universally: One who is a disaster in Lahore, will also be a disaster in Peshawar. In our politics today, it fits Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. He is going around giving speeches in other states as the BJP’s Grand National Polariser. He fires the imagination of the faithful and entertains them. But they are going to vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) anyway. His inability to swing the vote in any place else is now evident. So far, I’d maintained that Narendra Modi’s biggest blunder as prime minister was demonetisation. I have changed my mind. Demonetisation continues to be a blunder. Even if it paid rich dividends in the Uttar Pradesh elections soon after, Modi erred in gifting away that incredible success to Adityanath, whom no one had voted for. Demonetisation broke his government’s economic momentum. Adityanath may wreck his immediate political future. Therefore, he pushes demonetisation to the number two spot. The first issue with Adityanath isn’t that he is doing anything different from what he was handpicked for. It is just that he’s doing that job much too well. He was supposed to polarise not just Uttar Pradesh but also the rest of the country, especially the Hindi heartland. He is doing that with aplomb. It’s just that he is defying two presumptions of two of his party bosses. One, that they will be able to control him. And two, that as he goes around the country as a communalising para commando, he will make sure that his state will be properly governed, and he will deliver the seats there. Now he looks incapable of either. He can’t deliver seats in Uttar Pradesh, and isn’t swinging elections elsewhere. That’s why, a disaster in Lahore and a disaster in Peshawar. Also read: No mob lynching in Uttar Pradesh, Bulandshahr incident an accident: Yogi Adityanath It was also said that if Modi could keep Gujarat in control while campaigning nationally, so could Adityanath. But Modi had already been entrenched in Gujarat for 12 years, and Adityanath isn’t Modi. Modi left Hindutva behind in Gujarat in 2013-14 and took a more inclusive idea of the growth-driven Gujarat model of governance to the rest of India. Adityanath is exporting his Gorakhpur-style gau-bhakt Hindutva, Uttar Pradesh’s completely broken
[GreenYouth] Opinion: Yogi Adityanath, not demonetisation, is PM Modi’s biggest blunder, writes Shekhar Gupta
[<> (Introductory comment, dtd. March 18 2017, to the post: 'The New UP CM, Yogi Adityanath: Two Accounts: Who He Is?' at < https://www.mail-archive.com/greenyouth@googlegroups.com/msg20567.html>.) Compare this with the following extract from the write-up below: <>] https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/opinion-yogi-adityanath-not-demonetisation-is-pm-modi-s-biggest-blunder-writes-shekhar-gupta/story-QrnLrly2gnOm3bTbprZYpK.html?fbclid=IwAR1E8gl6KRhUb1QDdSeee2LO_WFNOMVeHox0WhpEqZ7DbLoiq4TlgxJPHhE Opinion: Yogi Adityanath, not demonetisation, is PM Modi’s biggest blunder, writes Shekhar Gupta Even if it paid rich dividends in Uttar Pradesh elections soon after, Modi erred in gifting away that incredible success to Yogi Adityanath who no one had voted for. Demonetisation broke his government’s economic momentum. Yogi Adityanath may wreck his immediate political future. Updated: Dec 10, 2018 17:34 IST Shekhar Gupta PM Modi and Yogi Adityanath as he was sworn-in as the Uttar Pradesh Chief minister(HT File Photo) There is a wise Punjabi metaphor that applies universally: One who is a disaster in Lahore, will also be a disaster in Peshawar. In our politics today, it fits Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. He is going around giving speeches in other states as the BJP’s Grand National Polariser. He fires the imagination of the faithful and entertains them. But they are going to vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) anyway. His inability to swing the vote in any place else is now evident. So far, I’d maintained that Narendra Modi’s biggest blunder as prime minister was demonetisation. I have changed my mind. Demonetisation continues to be a blunder. Even if it paid rich dividends in the Uttar Pradesh elections soon after, Modi erred in gifting away that incredible success to Adityanath, whom no one had voted for. Demonetisation broke his government’s economic momentum. Adityanath may wreck his immediate political future. Therefore, he pushes demonetisation to the number two spot. The first issue with Adityanath isn’t that he is doing anything different from what he was handpicked for. It is just that he’s doing that job much too well. He was supposed to polarise not just Uttar Pradesh but also the rest of the country, especially the Hindi heartland. He is doing that with aplomb. It’s just that he is defying two presumptions of two of his party bosses. One, that they will be able to control him. And two, that as he goes around the country as a communalising para commando, he will make sure that his state will be properly governed, and he will deliver the seats there. Now he looks incapable of either. He can’t deliver seats in Uttar Pradesh, and isn’t swinging elections elsewhere. That’s why, a disaster in Lahore and a disaster in Peshawar. Also read: No mob lynching in Uttar Pradesh, Bulandshahr incident an accident: Yogi Adityanath It was also said that if Modi could keep Gujarat in control while campaigning nationally, so could Adityanath. But Modi had already been entrenched in Gujarat for 12 years, and Adityanath isn’t Modi. Modi left Hindutva behind in Gujarat in 2013-14 and took a more inclusive idea of the growth-driven Gujarat model of governance to the rest of India. Adityanath is exporting his Gorakhpur-style gau-bhakt Hindutva, Uttar Pradesh’s completely broken governance model, and a divisive discourse. His rise is enabling a new lumpen class of semi-literate, unemployable saffron power to rise across the country. I’m not sure even he knows how to rein in the emotional and physical malevolence he is unleashing. His Ali versus Bajrang Bali, Hanuman-is-a-Dalit, Owaisi-will-have-to-leave-India, Hyderabad-will-become-Bhagyanagar, who-killed-the-cow after his police inspector was murdered in a mere “accident” etc, may not have embarrassed his leaders. His brief, or KRAs (Key Result Areas, as HR people prefer to say), included saying what others would rather not. But he is going too far and too fast. And solo. If his language doesn’t embarrass his leaders, why should they complain? For two reasons. One, it is not translating into votes. Yet, it is just that he has now emerged as his party’s most sought-after campaigner. In recent travels through poll bound states, we found that he’s the campaigner BJP candidates wanted most of all. As India’s Greatest Polariser, he has begun to overshadow his bosses. You could call him the BJP’s Navjot Singh Sidhu, except that he has India’s largest state under his belt. And when it comes to his party’s basic ideology, he is even more a “native” than any Modi or Shah. He’s the inheritor of one of the biggest Hindu seats of power. Narendra Modi had firmly put down Pravin Togadia when he was doing some of this. Adityanath isn’t so easy to tame. He isn’t just a shaven-headed, saffron-robed Togadia. He’s the reigning spiritual and temporal head of a huge Hindu temple sect. His following is rising among his party’s faithful. On his own
[GreenYouth] Demolition drive against bedrock institutions picks up monstrous momentum! 'With RBI governor Urjit Patel’s resignation, Break in India has touched a new high'
[Hasmukh Adhia the next Governor?| Or, at least, Arvind Panagariya? Or, straightaway, someone from the Centre for Economic Studies of the Vivekananda International Foundation? Or just that Gurumurthy will be pitchforked!? Under Modi Raj, nothing, just nothing, can be ruled out. <> (Excerpted from sl. no. l. below.)] I/II. https://scroll.in/article/905230/with-rbi-governor-urjit-patels-resignation-break-in-india-has-touched-a-new-high?fbclid=IwAR2lxlyXo8YS4fyjRbXxijMy39YIYnvclysLcwODe_RZZm9OK-50x2Wsn14 Institutional Autonomy With RBI governor Urjit Patel’s resignation, Break in India has touched a new high Something really terrible had to happen for the world to realise the plight that other Indian institutions, from courts to universities, are faced with today. With RBI governor Urjit Patel’s resignation, Break in India has touched a new high PTI an hour ago Udayan Mukherjee Reserve Bank of India governor Urjit Patel has resigned. This was always on the cards, though the governor chose not to announce it, understandably, at the last monetary policy meeting on the December 5. Being a loyal servant of the nation, he may also have waited for the last leg of the state elections to get out of the way, lest the timing of his exit be regarded with political suspicion. Thus, it was on a calm Monday evening that he chose to share this deeply disturbing news with the world. He cited “personal reasons”, for what else could he say? Hardly that relations with the Central government had plumbed such depths that it simply wasn’t possible to carry on anymore. Yet, it wouldn’t have been an impulsive or rash decision, as RBI governors never act in haste. Heads of other institutions can leave in a huff – a Board of Control for Cricket in India chief or even the head of the Film and Television Institute of India. But how often do you see an RBI governor leaving mid-term? It almost never happens, because the ramifications are so enormous and dire. And today, it has. We should be worried, very worried. And not only because the Sensex will tank on Tuesday. The world was disappointed when Raghuram Rajan left at the end of his tenure. Had demonetisation happened on his watch, my bet is that he would have resigned then, but thankfully he was spared that. The acrimony with the government had begun back then; Rajan merely dodged it with grace till it was his time to go. Minutes after Patel’s resignation, speaking to a news channel, Rajan said that “it was an act of protest, the only way an RBI governor could show it” and that “it serves no purpose to have yes-men at the helm of important institutions like the RBI”. Scathing words, coming from a former governor. But far more scathing words are deserved by the government at the Centre. It won’t only be words though, worse may follow. The world may express its displeasure not with words alone but also by pulling out capital from this country. Faith, once shaken, is difficult to restore. The RBI is an institution that global investors trust far more than the government of India, and if there is a feeling, as is bound to be, that this institution is under siege by politicians, their faith in the very foundation of India’s economic solidity may be shaken, with dire consequences. It remains to be seen if more of Patel’s colleagues follow in his footsteps. Disagreements between Central governments and the RBI are nothing new. Over the years, many finance ministers have differed with the RBI on matters of monetary policy. After all, the priorities of sitting finance ministers and the RBI are not always aligned. Governments have to show an account of economic growth during their tenures to win votes and be re-elected but the RBI has to balance those objectives with an eye on inflation and the macro economic stability of the country. So, terse comments are issued from North Block, sometimes in public, but the RBI keeps its head down and carries on. Eventually, governments back off, as they know the price of pushing beyond a point. Better sense always prevailed, until now. To this government, winning is all that matters. No price is too high. As the economy slows dangerously before an upcoming election, the government is desperate to find resources somehow to prime growth again. The RBI stands in its way and the government won’t have it. Demonetisation had already shown us what little respect Prime Minister Narenda Modi has for the office of the RBI governor. And now, he couldn’t swallow the temerity of the man, denying his claim. Thus, the sparks continued to fly till one side had to bow out. Inevitably, it was the governor. In a way, it is good that this has happened. Something really terrible had to happen for the world to realise the plight that other Indian institutions, from courts to universities, are faced with today. With the others, the world could make sympathetic noises and carry on, but the RBI is just too big to ignore. Global capital should vote with its feet and
