Sunday View: Modi’s India in 2017 & the ‘New’ Political Order

Kick-start the first morning of New Year 2017 with Quint’s collation of best Sunday reads from across publications.

When the first day of the New Year is a Sunday, what better than to kick-start your day with The Quint’s collation of best Sunday reads. (Photo: Reuters)

1) Will 2017 be a Happy New Year?

“As 2016 draws to a close, the whole country should be celebrating the state of the economy, but there is no joy anywhere. Why are the people sullen, dejected and apprehensive about the immediate future?,” asks former finance minister P Chidambaram in his regular column Across the aisle in The Indian Express.

The government may have promised WPI inflation and fiscal deficit to be low and GDP to grow at the rate of 7.5 per cent but the critical economic measures like FDI and Index of Industrial Production (IIP) have slumped to an all time low post demonetisation, writes Mr Chidambaram.

It will be evident to unbiased observers that all five issues — FPI, IIP, credit growth, NPA and exports — have been adversely affected by demonetisation. So, if anything, the state of the Indian economy has become worse since the massive disruption caused by demonetisation on November 8, 2016….I wish you a Happy New Year. I sincerely wish that my wish will come true.

P Chidambaram in The Indian Express.

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2) Happy New Year?

2017 will be the most challenging year of Narendra Modi’s political career writes Tavleen Singh in Fifth column for The Indian Express.

Modi is lucky to have such an uninspiring bunch of opponents but he must remember that any one of them will defeat him if this year does not bring signs of real reform.

Tavleen Singh in The Indian Express.

Tavleen argues that the Prime Minister has proved that he is able to take radical measures easily but he must also show that he can take radical measures in other spheres as well.

Is he aware that the officials he has put in charge of implementing his favourite programmes have not delivered? Swachh Bharat remains mostly just a good idea as do schemes to improve living conditions in our cities and villages. So a child born in India in the first hours of this new year faces a dismal future.

Tavleen Singh in The Indian Express.

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3)Rising India Spells Hope But There’s a Big ‘If’

Writing for Times of India author/commentator Gurcharan Das says that 2016 was a dreadful year and it is a relief that it’s over. He believes that Narendra Modi made his first big mistake with ill-considered notebandi, but India’s prospects still look bright.

Although a badly executed demonetisation has been a profound economic setback, it has not turned political sentiment against Modi. Ours is an age of rising expectations in India unlike the mood of diminished expectations in the West….If only Modi could control cultural intolerance, India could become an inspiration to the world, helping restore faith in a liberal future. But it is a big ‘if’.

Gurcharan Das for Times of India.

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4) UP For Grab

Predicting that the post-poll coalitions are up for grabs in Uttar Pradesh, Meghnad Desai in his regular column Out of my mind in The Indian Express writes that Congress and Rahul Gandhi’s handling of the demonetisation crisis inches them further away from a win in UP polls.

Rahul Gandhi’s frenetic public speaking is a sign that 12 years after his debut, he may have realised that politics demands hard work…The new avatar is serious, but unfortunately Rahul lacks the aptitude or hunger for politics…Even as Rahul Gandhi threatened an earthquake, his party led the rest to prevent any debate. Rahul is Modi’s best insurance.

Meghnad Desai in The Indian Express. 

Mr Desai believes that the SOS for Priyanka is as futile as Rahul’s attempts to malign BJP post demonetisation. Also, that the ‘selfless troops of the RSS’ will deliver for the BJP in UP.

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5) In the New World

We are in a new political set-up globally is what Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes in The India Express. In the new ‘global complex’, disinformation leads better than censorship and leaders like Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, Recep Tayyip Erdogan or Narendra Modi have devised a way of politics that gains by ‘tapping into desires’ and not by ‘repressing them’.

The perception that representative institutions like legislatures or instruments of opinion formation like the media had become irrevocably corrupt created the longing for a form of politics above the ordinary messy and incremental checks and balances of democracy. The prize did not go to those who addressed specific forms of corruption; it went to those who could declare the whole system corrupt and position themselves outside of it.

Pratap Bhanu Mehta in The India Express.

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6) The Year of Exceptionalism

“When the going is good, the bosses play golf, but when times are bad, they try to play God. 2016 saw many national leaders doing just that,” writes Dipankar Gupta in Times of India.

Mr Gupta believes that exceptional things happened in 2016 as the leaders world over ‘mocked’ their establishment roots and branched out pretty much on their own. From Donald Trump to Brexit to Narendra Modi in India year 2016 saw that the the power of exceptionalism lies in its simplicity. World over it was a struggle between ‘personalities’ and ‘institutions’. Ultimately it was the ‘leaders’ who won.

If democracies continue to follow the leader and not the party, then 2016 will be remembered as the year when it all happened. Notice has now been served and the rest of the establishment could easily punch itself out of office.

Dipankar Gupta in Times of India.

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7) PM Modi Leaves Indian Political Space Unsettled

To use the extraordinary political capital he acquired in 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi chose demonetisation over the politics of hindutva, liberal reforms or re-defining India’s relationship with Pakistan. By doing this he has ‘invested in one of the most audacious experiments in political economy India,’ writes Prashant Jha for Hindustan Times.

He highlights three consequences of this move and asserts that Modi’s economics has disrupted Indian politics, which may remain so for years to come.

Fifty days later, three things are clear. One, Modi remains enormously popular. He was able to construct a narrative of the working poor versus the corrupt rich..Two, the political space has opened up. The BJP’s traditional base of traders and entrepreneurs are hard-hit and angry; but the party sees the possibility of winning over the poor..Three, the opposition has found a voice- even if a fragmented one.

Prashant Jha for Hindustan Times.

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8)Try a New Year’s Revolution

To go on a diet is the most popular new year resolution but author/commentator Jenniger Weiner’s piece in The New York Times will compel you to re-define your agenda for the year 2017. Of all the things in the world to change and to fix, the least important will always be your looks is what Jenniger firmly believes.

If the weight-loss industry and the fitness industry and even, it seems, the president-elect would rather have you counting calories instead of all the frightening ways the world has changed since November, if they want you spending your money on commercial diet plans instead of giving it to Planned Parenthood, then you can recommit to self-acceptance, and on doing work that will ultimately matter more than the shape of your body.<i></i>

Jenniger Weiner in The New York Times

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9) End your Sunday reads with a pinch of humour. The Hindu’s cartoonist Keshav takes a dig on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s end of the year speech that left almost everybody speechless!

(Photo: The Hindu)

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