“How do you amend an unwritten Constitution?” wonders Meghnad Desai at the outset of his column for the Indian Express. He charts the journey of the Brexit deal in the British Parliament so far, recalling how Prime Minister Theresa May has been defeated thrice over her principal proposal in the House of Commons; despite this, she cannot be made to resign or call an election, as in previous days, because of the Fixed Terms Parliament Act. Yet now, after centuries, the ‘backbencher’, as Desai puts it, has managed to wrest control:
Zoya Hasan, in her Sunday column for the Indian Express, ruminates on the trend of catchy and pithy slogans that have, for decades, become the call of elections in India. She remembers, particularly, the 1971 Congress party slogan of Garibi Hatao – especially since it is reflected in the current Congress slogan of ‘Garibi par vaar, bahattar hazaar’. The Congress has vowed to give up to Rs 72,000 to 20% of the poorest Indian households and, while this is a tall order, Hasan believes it could be a game-changer, just like Indira Gandhi’s 1971 slogan and its thought.
Chetan Bhagat, in his column ‘The Underage Optimist’ for The Times of India, lambasts the Congress NYAY scheme (Nyuntam Aay Yojana) or Minimum Wage Scheme, that promises up to Rs 72,000 a year for 20% of India’s poorest families, on both the moral and economic front. While this much money, Bhagat reasons, can pull people out of poverty, ensuring better education, food, shelter, etc, he believes it could be morally problematic since it could create a sense of entitlement and disrupt the labour market. It also aims to use taxpayer money to create a huge subsidy, and many taxpayers may not be ready for this. Economically, Bhagat outlines:
Lalita Panicker, in her column for the Hindustan Times, reflects on the Women’s Reservation Bill that has now been thrown around for decades, without actually coming to fruition. This time, both the Congress and BJP had promised to implement it, which made the situation unique – but as Panicker points out, there is no evidence to suggest it will actually come to pass with only the Rajya Sabha having passed it so far. The promise of 33% seats being reserved in the state assemblies and the Lok Sabha, Panicker outlines, has had several arguments against it:
Tavleen Singh, in her column for the Indian Express on Sunday, attempts to make a case for Modi on the developmental front, in the current elections of 2019. She charts his trajectory through her own trajectory of visits to a village called Jayapur that Narendra Modi adopted when he was elected from Varanasi. The first time she’d been there three years ago, Singh had noted its squalor – just like neighbouring villages – but that the main road was in the process of being paved, and there was a new ATM. The second time, she said, the road had been paved and there were “signs that Swachh Bharat had made an impact”. Singh also claims that the Hindutva argument brought against Modi exists only “on Twitter”:
At first glance, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Coomi Kapoor’s Sunday column for the Indian Express revolves around her advertising for a job opening, particularly a sub-editor, at the English daily ‘Sub-editor needed’, however, is only her plaintive plea that the BJP hire one, and quickly, judging by its manifesto for the 2019 elections. Apart from its gross grammatical errors, she reflects particularly on the sentence – “We have made strict provisions for transferring the laws in order to commit crimes against women.’’ Kapoor also reflects on the blog that LK Advani penned on the eve of the BJP’s foundation day, claiming it was a major embarrassment for the party:
P Chidambaram, in his Sunday column ‘Across the Aisle’ for the Indian Express, highlights the many problems with the BJP manifesto vis-a-vis the Congress one, claiming that while the latter is a people-sourced one, the former has a Modi-centric approach. The Congress manifesto, Chidambaram asserts, is the talk of the town and that even PM Modi cannot make a speech without referring to it. The BJP one, however, the columnist points out, is replete with factual errors:
Dilip Cherian, among other things, reflects on an “unusual” problem in his Sunday column for The Asian Age. He writes of former IPS officer Mayank Jain, who he claims has put the Madhya Pradesh government and the central government in a bind. Five years after being suspended by the MP Lokayukta special police establishment officials in a disproportionate assets case, the corruption watchdog has ruled that there is “insufficient evidence” to prosecute him. However, with Jain having been forcibly retired last August, how will one restore him to power? Cherian leads directly from this dilemma to a customs one, highlighting the role of coin officers in detecting smuggling:
Ramachandra Guha, in his column for The Telegraph, solemnly remembers the Jallianwala Bagh massacre exactly a hundred years since it occurred, on 13 April 1913, when a British brigadier-general Reginald Dyer opened fire on close to 500 people in Jallianwala Bagh, near the Golden Temple in Amritsar. The massacre, which horrified public imagination, inspired a series of books, and Guha talks about one particular book called Martyrdom to Freedom: 100 Years of Jallianwala Bagh. This one, he believes, is made particularly poignant by an interview of the veteran historian of modern Punjab, VN Datta, by his daughter Nonica Datta.
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