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Sunday View: The Best Weekend Opinion Reads, Curated Just for You

We sifted through the papers to find the best opinion reads, so you won't have to.

The Quint

Opinion

Published: 01 Dec 2024, 7:15 AM IST

The Best Weekend Opinion Reads, Curated Just for You.

Photo: Canva

Mahayuti’s Campaign: Trick, not Treat

In his weekly column for The Indian Express, former Finance Minister P Chidambaram critiques the divisive electoral strategies that led to the Mahayuti alliance’s victory in the Maharashtra Assembly elections, arguing that polarizing rhetoric, rather than welfare schemes like the Ladki Bahin Yojana, played a decisive role.

It highlights how slogans and inflammatory speeches targeting minorities were used to consolidate Hindu votes, drawing parallels to colonial 'divide and rule' tactics. Chidambaram condemns these approaches as unconstitutional and warns of their detrimental impact on India’s social fabric.

They coined ‘Ek Hai toh Safe hai’ (if we are one, we are safe) and ‘Batenge toh Katenge’ (divided, we perish) that were deceptively neutral exhortations but, in fact, were addressed to the members of a particular community. Inflammatory speeches on ‘love jihad’ and ‘vote jihad’ were frequently made in the campaign. Old war cries such as ‘tukde tukde gang’ and ‘urban naxals’ were revived. The messaging was clever, well-directed and found its mark.

P Chidambaram, The Indian Express

Climate Crisis: A Plan B Needed For Wild Weather

In his Hindustan Times article, artist and wildlife conservationist Ananda Banerjee highlights the worsening climate crisis in 2024, with record-breaking heat, extreme weather events, and unprecedented global warming, particularly in India, which faced devastating floods, heatwaves, and landslides. Despite global agreements like the Paris Accord and renewable energy targets, greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel reliance continue to rise, with climate conferences failing to yield meaningful action.

Banerjee critiques the gap between ambitious pledges and practical outcomes, suggesting a shift toward tangible mitigation measures like waste reduction and sustainable urban planning, while questioning the feasibility of achieving long-term goals like net zero amidst systemic inertia and accelerating environmental degradation.

Chasing net zero will not help. Artificial intelligence (AI) and other new technology that we hope will help ameliorate our climate pains are energy guzzlers, and, at least as of now, energy is rarely green. For example, the growth of solar and wind energy means more mining for lithium, cobalt, copper, silver, nickel, and other minerals, which will leave its own massive carbon footprint and deplete forest cover, thereby affecting the planet’s carbon absorption capacity. Against such a backdrop, can we confidently say we will live to see 2070, the year India hopes to become net zero?

Ananda Banerjee, Hindustan Times

Make America Bland Again

This Times of India column by Abhijit Banerjee is a reflective piece comparing the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump through the lens of his personal experiences and observations of American society.

Using the metaphor of 'angel food cake' for Reagan's affable but deeply conservative approach and contrasting it with Trump's overt crassness and divisiveness, the Nobel Prize-winning economist explores the cultural and economic factors driving voter behavior. The piece examines the anger of working-class Americans, their cynicism toward elites, and their support for Trump as a disruptive figure, despite his flaws.

Banerjee concludes by critiquing strongman politics and advocating for governance that, while possibly bland, effectively serves people’s needs. The inclusion of an angel food cake recipe symbolizes a return to understated yet meaningful solutions.

Both Reagan and Trump were/are machistas, but in very different ways. Reagan thought of himself as a cowboy in a broad-brimmed hat, a role he played in several films (he occasionally confused scenes from a film script with actual history). In his mind’s eye, he was tough, but gracious and fair. Trump, despite his elite upbringing, is more of a street-corner bully, a blow-hard and a lewd whistler. I disliked Reagan and still blame him for the disastrous anti-poor turn that the US took in the 1980s, whereas Trump, at least in his stated views, is more sympathetic to the US working class (though not to immigrants). But there is a crassness, dishonesty and violence that Trump brings to everything he does and says, that I cannot bear.

Abhijit Banerjee, The Times of India

Violence in Wastelands

In her article for The Indian Express, columnist Tavleen Singh criticizes the ongoing religious conflicts between Hindus and Muslims in India, arguing that these disputes over temples and mosques distract from the more urgent and dire issues of civic neglect and poor living conditions. Using examples from towns like Sambhal, Singh highlights the appalling state of sanitation, infrastructure, and municipal governance that affects both communities equally.

The piece calls for a collective focus on demanding better basic amenities rather than indulging in divisive historical grievances or political agendas.

Why do we not just agree that when Muslim invaders rampaged through India, they flattened thousands of Hindu, Buddhist and Jain temples? Why not just accept this ugly truth? Why do we need to continue blaming every Indian Muslim today for what his co-religionists did hundreds of years ago? Muslims are not innocent victims either. They rally in support of a Waqf Board that has been notoriously corrupt and criminally territorial for far too long. But when you have a Hindutva government trying to restrict the Waqf’s powers there are inevitably suspicions that this is just one more attempt to humiliate Muslims in general.

Tavleen Singh, The Indian Express

Are There Really Ghosts in the Voting Machine?

In his column for The Economic Times, journalist Indrajit Hazra humorously explores the growing conspiracy theories around Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in India, particularly after election results where the BJP wins. He satirizes the belief that the machines are either malfunctioning due to supernatural interference or human tampering.

Hazra also defends the technical integrity of EVMs, explaining that they are tamper-proof and not connected to the internet, thus making them unhackable. In the end, he suggests that the real mystery lies in the reactions to these machines, blending skepticism with a sense of intrigue, while referencing pop culture figures like Fox Mulder and Dana Scully from 'The X-Files'.

Those who believe supernatural interference argue that India's use of third generation EVMs - M3 machines - make them tamper-proof. Even if physically tampered with, a 'safety mode' kicks in and M3s become inoperable. Unlike certain countries, like the US where EVMs are used along with paper ballots in certain states with varying guidelines, EVMs in India are self-contained units that are not connected to the internet and can't be hooked to Bluetooth or WiFi, or even a mains power supply. They are actually 'underdesigned' for our digital age, making them 'unhackable' - unlike the models used in the US that Elon Musk wants eliminated as 'anything (connected) could be hacked'.

Indrajit Hazra, The Economic Times

Redesign POSH Law For the Informal Sector

In her opinion piece for the Hindustan Times, Lalita Panicker focuses on the systemic challenges faced by women in India's informal sectors, particularly in agriculture, despite their significant role in shaping electoral outcomes. Female agricultural workers endure grueling conditions, exploitation, unequal pay, and widespread sexual harassment, often without legal recourse due to inadequate implementation of the POSH Act.

The existing local committees under POSH are ineffective in addressing workplace abuses for informal workers, as they lack awareness of the unique challenges in these sectors and the authority to take punitive action. Women’s groups like SEWA Bharat advocate for restructured mechanisms with stronger accountability and survivor-centered approaches to make informal workplaces safer for women.

Female agricultural workers face severe exploitation and violence that goes unaddressed due to their fear of losing work, social stigma, and power dynamics that favour landowners and male counterparts. These women work on farms they do not own, either under sharecropping arrangements or for daily wages. Their jobs are equally strenuous, yet they are paid less than men.

Lalita Panicker, Hindustan Times

In 1950s, When a Business House Stood in the Dock

In his article for The Indian Express, journalist and author Harish Damodaran draws a historical parallel between the Dalmia-Jain (DJ) Group scandal of the 1950s and recent allegations against the Adani Group, highlighting differences in the government’s responses to corporate malpractices. He recounts how Jawaharlal Nehru's government instituted a high-profile inquiry into the DJ Group after Feroze Gandhi’s explosive allegations in Parliament, leading to criminal penalties and regulatory reforms, including the nationalization of life insurance.

By contrast, the Narendra Modi government has avoided similar scrutiny of the Adani Group despite serious allegations, possibly reflecting its reliance on big business as a strategic partner. Damodaran critiques this shift in governance priorities and questions the potential risks to Adani's financial stability and broader implications for India's corporate landscape.

The Modi government’s apparent reluctance to act against Adani could be because it views, more than previous administrations, big business as a partner in nation-building and also serving the country’s foreign policy and geostrategic interests. But to what extent the current developments will impact the Adani Group’s own stock valuations and ability to raise credit for funding its ambitious investment plans, both domestic and overseas, remains to be seen. Business history is littered with examples of over-leverage and over-diversification exacting a heavy price.

Harish Damodaran, The Indian Express

Letter on Women COs Shows How Some Army Officers are Stuck in a Time Warp

In his article for The Times of India, high court lawyer Navdeep Singh critiques a leaked letter from an Indian Army general, which makes unscientific and biased remarks about women commanding officers, such as claiming they lack tact and empathy. Singh argues that the letter is problematic due to its lack of methodological rigor, sweeping generalizations, and inappropriate tone for official correspondence.

He also discusses the legal context, noting that women won the right to serve in permanent commission and command roles. The piece suggests that the focus should be on sensitizing male officers and military leaders to gender equality, which is an ongoing process, rather than perpetuating negative stereotypes.

Though the intent, in all probability, was to improve the organisation, the letter is still indigestible on multiple levels. First, studies such as these are meant to be conducted scientifically by professional wings of the defence services and the ministry, such as the Army Training Command, College of Defence Management, and Defence Institute of Psychological Research, not by a motley crew of undisclosed men sitting together in a room exchanging personal opinions on women.

Navdeep Singh, The Times of India

Twin Malaise: Inequality is Majoritarianism’s Close Kin in India

In his op-ed for The Telegraph, economist Parakala Prabhakar critiques the current Indian government's agenda, highlighting two key interconnected issues: a majoritarian political climate and a deeply unequal economy. Prabhakar argues that these forces are shaping public discourse and influencing a significant portion of India's urban and educated classes, while also trickling down to some poorer sections.

He argues that these two phenomena—majoritarianism and economic inequality—are mutually reinforcing, contributing to the erosion of India's secular and egalitarian foundations. The piece warns that this combination threatens the nation's democratic and inclusive ideals, which were central to its freedom movement.

The political exclusion of the Muslim minority is now in plain sight. Even tokenism has been done away with. There is no presence of the biggest minority of this country in the Union cabinet. The ruling party does not have a single Muslim representative in Parliament. In states like Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh, where it has been in power for long, the Bharatiya Janata Party does not have a single MLA belonging to the principal minority community. In both states, Muslims have a salient presence in terms of population.

Parakala Prabhakar, The Telegraph