The world is noticing. Good. Under Modi, India has grown a spine but at the cost of an illiberalism that’s ~ 70% of the country unlike about 35% for Trumpism.

The world is noticing. Good. Under Modi, India has grown a spine but at the cost of an illiberalism that’s ~ 70% of the country unlike about 35% for Trumpism. https://www.economist.com/leaders/2024/01/18/narendra-modis-illiberalism-may-imperil-indias-economic-progress

Delver at contraptions.venkateshrao.com, running summerofprotocols.com, host of /gloom ☀️

The modern history of the Ayodhya temple has been laundered and the <35 set is too young to remember.

1990 Advani rath yatra was 34 years ago. I was 16. <35 set has no memory of just how ugly things got then, or what the current theater of creating a new nationalist identity is built on.

there was the Gujarat riot in the 2000s that I clearly remember but feels like people rarely bring that up now. It was a big talking point the first time he got elected

witness gonzo | writing at summerlightning.substack.com
| sachinbenny.xyz 

Yep, the Godhra incident and response. His reputation is completely laundered now. He was also smart enough at the time to indulge only in sins of omission rather than commission. Slow/non-response etc.

Design engineer. 
Interested in economics, polity, meditation and literature.

I said almost exactly the same thing in a dm. Except I classified it as unhealthy.

Modi has a healthy relationship with the past. He consumes it rather than than the other way round. Engineering rhetoric around "Amrut Kaal" suggests that he longs for another grand generative '1947 moment'.

He takes way more of the credit than he deserves. The hapless V. P. Singh was forced to make the hardest moves, and Manmohan Singh as finance minister in the 90s  laid most of the foundations. Congress in the aughts basically screwed it up with a series of scams, so main contribution of BJP was not screwing it up more

It also seems hard to say how much of the economic improvement was because of his policies vs continuing the same trend of the last 30 years. Makes me think if most populist leaders just ride off of the momentum of previous regimes and the association with progress is just coincidence