Narendra Modi And The "New" India?...

Okay Harsch I want YOU "here" see 'cuz you've always had a great interest in India and Indians for as long as I've known you (and that's almost THIRTY years now!).

This morn on NPR I heard that 550 million Indians voted (100 million more than last time to make a 66% turnout) and Modi's party won an overwhelming mandate over the venerable and once dominant Congress, the "founding" political party of the nation led succeedingly by three generations of Gandhis.

On "The Diane Rehm Show" later in the morning commentators were saying Modi's election marked a certain "maturity" of Indian voters as well as a reaction to the downturn in the once VERY hot Indian economy and the usual corruption in much of the Indian political structure.

Of course Modi's perceived role in the Gurjaret state riots in which some hundreds of Indian Muslims were killed was brought up but he was "exonerated" by the high court though one commenter noted that the courts are also notoriously corrupt, though she herself was quite positive about Modi's election.

Another said Modi was bound to disappoint -- rather perhaps as per Obama and the younger voters who held him in such high regard (and after all voted for him again in 2012) but were disappointed in various things like (not) closing Gitmo and the economy and drones and Snowden too.

By the way the other day I mentioned that US help was going to Nigeria to find those kidnapped girls and I made some assumptions that I learned are untrue. I wise-guyed that there would be no drones(!) but it turns out that's EXACTLY what the DoD is sending -- no troops on the ground but the drones in the air! The "mission" Chuck Hagel says is not to "pop" the weasels from the clear blue but to "search" but apparently not to "destroy."

So Rick in particular -- comments?! And of course from anyone else who's interested...

Slightly off topic (but since you brought it up)...

I admit to some curiosity as to why the U.S. is suddenly concerned about this particular atrocity. There are very similar tragedies (some of them VERY close to home) that have prompted zero reaction from the U.S. So, why is this one so important?

http://www.alternet.org/gender/outraged-kidnapping-nigerian-girls-4-other-incide...

No I invited a comment on the Nigerian "incident" by including it so I don't think you're "off."

The "ideal" view may be that folks are rightly upset about this obviously brutish and sexist treatment of these girls as "slaves" and "wives" beyond their wills who have no business stuffing their pretty little heads with knowledge unrelated to cooking, cleaning and uh "conceiving" eh.

Another attitude may be more "personal" -- that the Obama administration's reaction became more than routine because the Obama family is African American and Obama himself had an African father and the presidential couple truly does "identify" the Nigerian girls with their own two daughters. Mrs Obama in particular has spoken out in that vein hmm.

A more cynical view could be that the administration perceives as it should the coming midterm election as potentially, even likely, devastating to any remaining political agenda it has and the Nigerian situation fits in with an effort to energize Democratic voters, in this case unmarried women who both struggle economically and psychologically, perhaps seeking some personal independence from the "traditional" married lot.

Granted the issue has an "Oprah" quality of some sensation but then that's what may make it "relevant" hmm. Then too the admin may also (along with the other aspects) be checking out Boco Haram, this time with only surveillance drones but uh "the FIRE next time"?...

There's also the possibility that the American shift of power towards Africa has something to do with it as well.

A talking head on CNBC said that Modi represents a shift from Socialism to a pro-business model.

The remnants of Indian socialism are spare, so it's been pro-business for quite some time. But corrupt business. Congress has also been extremely weak for decades now, over-relying on the Nehru dynastic possibilities (Sonja Gandhi?), personality politics. Though that does work on the state level as proven in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, which each elected bizarre movie actors to demagogue their states (Tamil Nadu got the guys wife to, a former actress, and all along their screen writer was in the mix). Any complex analysis of the results would be futile at this point, but my view is rather too simplistic, more or less what MW suggests--voting for a perceived major change. I don't think they'll get it. Since the fifties, though Nehru ruled before and after that decade, India had a complicated relationship with the west, Nehru caught between pressures from the US and Soviets, wanting to Industrialize, wanting a more egalitarian society. He got he worst of the former and none of the latter. When I was first there, in 1990, they had a very successful socialized health insurance program, but because they kept US insurance companies out the US named them in their annual Unfair Trader award, and despite an enormous number of excellent doctors and surgeons the health care industry is a shambles, private clinics and hospitals extremely expensive and public ones over-run and at times beset by horrific conditions.
Various successes--mighty Bangalore--have generally had deleterious effects on the whole, more benign slum riddance programs than Indira's but with results like shoving the poor farther from the cities centers, yet all the while having to deal with insufficient agricultural opportunities and almost impossible to believe influxes of the rural poor to the cities.

What does Sasi think about the election?...

Instinctual dislike of BJP.

Operating within a Parliamentary system of government actually gives Modi a better opportunity to implement his program than Obama had, especially considering that it looks like the BJP is going to get a majority all on its own, which hasn't happened for about 30 years in India. That doesn't mean that Modi will be able to get everything that he wants, when he wants it. He's still going to have to fight against India's notoriously obstinate and corrupt bureaucracy, which will fight against most attempts he makes to lower regulatory barriers as such efforts would threaten their jobs and ability to skim money from the government and public, and even against some who harbor an anti--free-market sentiment within his own party.

More so than most heads of government, Modi is going to be judged on the GDP growth rate over the next five years. If it averages at least 8% per year for the next five years, he'll likely walk to re-election. Anything lower than that and he's going to have the same problem that Congress did this year: a whole bunch of people angry that they can't get a job.

It's questionable whether the 'free market' has been of benefit to India.

#10--it's questionable whether the free market has been beneficial to anyone other than the wealthy anywhere--except maybe how it informs on China's overall economic growth--maybe.

It's hard to say, since there aren't that many 'free markets' in the world, and almost all of them are illegal.

good points 11 and 12

Yes well "free" market is always to me a dubious term.

Re Sasi -- well my "instinct" is the same...

India doesn't really have a free market. What limited reforms have been made in that direction, however, have benefited the country overall. Though the individual benefits of such reforms in India cannot be widely spread because of the general decrepitude of the country's infrastructure, the woeful inadequacy of its primary-education system, and rampant governmental corruption. India needs a healthy dose of political reform to go along with its economic reform if it is to see the benefits of the economic reform more widely distributed.

Modi's "just begun" -- stay tuned!...

Yaroslav Trofimov @yarotrof | 1:05 PM · Nov 29, 2023:
Chief Foreign-Affairs Correspondent of The Wall Street Journal...

Pretty wild details in this DOJ indictment for alleged conspiracy by Indian officials to assassinate a U.S. citizen on American soil — including instructions to temporarily halt the plot so as not to disrupt Modi’s visit to Washington in June.

15 p indictment ( https://justice.gov/d9/2023-11/u.s._v._gupta_indictment.pdf )
-----------------------------------------------

Alexander Panetta {CBC} @Alex_Panetta | 12:33 PM · Nov 29, 2023:

A just-unsealed U.S. criminal indictment has unleashed an unprecedented flood of details about an alleged Indian government-connected plot to carry out multiple assassinations in North America

It alleges there were *3* such assassination plots in Canada

U.S. indictment alleges multiple Indian assassination plans across North America
The indictment suggests there were plans to carry out three killings in Canadian territory
Alexander Panetta · CBC News · Posted: Nov 29, 2023
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/us-unseals-indictment-sikh-killings-1.7043428

>17 margd: Reminds that back in the 1970's the Pinochet led Chilean govt. through it's Operation Condor was assassinating political enemies/exiles all over the globe and in 1976 they murdered Orlando Letelier along with an American citizen in Washington DC a short distance (like less than a mile; I believe on the street know as Embassy Road/Drive or whatever) away from the Capitol building. Ed Koch then a member of congress (before he became Mayor of NYC) went to the floor of the House that day railing against Pinochet's govt. which then turned around and threatened Koch's life. Mr. Kissinger who died yesterday had a big part in Pinochet's coming to power via the military coup overthrowing the Allende govt. and afterwards Henry supported not only Pinochet's right wing dictatorship but a number of other Latin/South American dictatorships.

>18 lriley: Thank goodness Kissinger and Trump never teamed up...

“The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.”
- Henry Kissinger

DW News @dwnews | 5:18 AM · May 19, 2024 {X}:

Many in India-administered Kashmir feel disempowered since PM Modi's government revoked the semi-autonomous status of the region.

But candidates like Waheed-Ur-Rehman Para have urged residents to cast ballots in the general elections to give the region a voice.

2:28 (https://x.com/dwnews/status/1792122523292938647)