Modi’s 100 days: trashing lives and the constitution – Editorial
This week India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, clocked up 100 days in office in his second term. Mr Modi has chosen to govern much as he did his first term – as a rightwing populist on behalf of the majority Hindu population at the expense of the rights of minorities, especially Muslims, in his vast country.…
In both the 2014 and 2019 general elections, Mr Modi ran a presidential-style campaign, turning the general election into a vote on his leadership. There are credible allegations that he is using the police and tax authorities to target political opponents. The last set of elections in 2019 cost about £7bn. Mr Modi’s BJP spent three times the £1bn budget of the opposition Congress party to win. Not only did he spend more, he revealed less about the parlous state the country was in.
He became first Indian prime minister to go to the polls without showing how his government had fared in diminishing poverty. He also tried to suppress data that revealed unemployment to be at a 45-year high. India’s economic prospects are worsening.… Western environmentalists and billionaires need to be careful not to end up as props for Modi’s regime, which rests on damaging civil liberties and the rule of law in the name of popular majorities.
SEE ALSO:
- 100 days of Modi 2.0: A hundred worries now – Editorial (Sep 10, 2019, Deccan Herald)
https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/first-edit/100-days-of-modi-20-a-hundred-worries-now-760303.html - A hundred days on, Modi 2.0: Its purpose is the show of power, nationalist fervour, social control – By Pratap Bhanu Mehta (Sep 10, 2019, Indian Express)
https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/narendra-modi-bjp-hundred-days-kashmir-lockdown-5980799/ - Modi 2.0’s Big ‘Achievement’ in Its First 100 Days is to Undermine the Indian Union – By Prem Shankar Jha (Sep 9, 2019, The Wire)
https://thewire.in/politics/modi-2-0s-big-achievement-in-its-first-100-days-is-to-undermine-the-indian-union - Rule of the majority – By Shaikh Mujibur Rehman (Sep 27, 2019, Frontline)
https://frontline.thehindu.com/books/article29382642.ece
