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Narendra Modi’s useful idiot Rahul Gandhi is keeping the PM in power

Rahul Gandhi radiates an almost feudalistic contempt. (Money Sharma/AFP/Getty)

Rahul Gandhi radiates an almost feudalistic contempt. (Money Sharma/AFP/Getty)


June 23, 2023   7 mins

India’s reputation as the world’s largest secular democracy has suffered grievously since Narendra Modi’s victory in the general elections of 2014. The first Hindu supremacist to govern with an absolute majority in parliament, he has presided over the subversion of indispensable institutions, from the free press to the election commission. Last week, human rights groups castigated the White House for rolling out the red carpet for Modi’s three-day state visit; the prime minister had been banned in the past from visiting the US “for severe violations of religious freedom” following the deaths of more than a thousand people, mostly Muslims, in sectarian riots that engulfed Gujarat in 2002, when he was the state’s chief minister.

Today, the Indian prime minister, well into his second term in office and facing elections next year, is accused of condoning pervasive violence against religious minorities, introducing of a stealthy religious test of citizenship, destroying India’s secular character, fostering crony capitalism and criminalising dissent. And yet to ascribe the wretched state of Indian democracy solely to one man is to engage in a form of self-deception. The consolidation of Modi’s authoritarian rule would be inconceivable in the presence of an effective democratic opposition.

Modi’s rise has been facilitated by an opposition that now exists solely to provide subsistence to one family: the Gandhi dynasty, which seized total control of the Congress Party in the Seventies and converted it into a family fief. Despite handing two historic electoral victories to Modi and his Hindu-first Bharatiya Janata Party, the governing apparatus of Congress — the “secular” alternative to the ruling party — has clung religiously to the Gandhis.

The great-grandson of India’s first prime minister, Rahul Gandhi is the seventh member of his family to occupy, formally or informally, the pinnacle of Congress. His conduct radiates an almost feudalistic contempt for his obligations. He has one of the worst attendance records in parliament. Between 2015 and 2019, as Modi subverted autonomous institutions, sanctifying murderous Hindu supremacism and building a cult of personality unrivalled in the democratic world, Gandhi averaged about five foreign trips a month. Virtually every time Modi created an opening for the opposition to push back against the government, Gandhi was abroad, leaving his party without leadership and the nation without an opposition. With the exception of Maha Vajralongkorn, the notoriously dissolute monarch of Thailand, it is difficult to think of another Asian leader who has spent more time away from his country in times of need.

But, then, in March, the scion of the storied Nehru-Gandhi dynasty found himself sentenced to two years in jail on charges of defamation, for mocking Modi’s name in a 2019 speech. Since his punishment met the statutory minimum prescribed in law for disqualification from membership of parliament, Gandhi was served a notice of eviction within 24 hours of the trial. The rapidity with which he was removed was staggering. “I am fighting for Indian democracy,” he declared as he announced his intention to appeal. But far from being a martyr for Indian democracy, Rahul Gandhi is complicit in its slow murder.

Those who have questioned Gandhi’s record and challenged his paramountcy have found themselves stamped upon or driven out of the Congress Party. In 2020, during an important state election in Bihar, Gandhi went away on a Himalayan holiday midway through the campaign. A senior figure who objected to this and faulted the leadership for another Congress defeat was severely upbraided and subjected to disciplinary action. That same year, as defeats piled up in state elections across India, a group of 23 Congress leaders issued a call for internal reform of India’s oldest political party.

The Gandhis retaliated with a scorched-earth response. The reformists were shouted down, bullied, heckled, insulted, told to leave the party and punished in petty and humiliating ways. The party’s politburo tightened the screws with a unanimous resolution to “strengthen” the Gandhis’ control of Congress “in every possible way”, pledging never to permit anyone to “undermine or weaken” their hold on it, and praising them for inspiring “a generation of Indians”. 

The degeneration of Congress into a family-run despotism ought to dismay all who claim to be concerned about the state of democracy in India. Congress is more than a political party. It is the institution that incubated Indian democracy. Founded by a Scotsman in 1885 as a forum for the expression of native aspirations in British India, it grew under the supervision of Mahatma Gandhi into the engine of India’s freedom movement. Aspiring democrats in Africa and Asia came to regard it as a model for their own countries. “In the upsurge of anti-colonial and freedom struggles that swept through Asia and Africa in the postwar period,” Nelson Mandela wrote from Robben Island in 1980, “there could hardly be a liberation movement or national leader who was not influenced one way or another by […] the All India Congress”.

Following India’s independence, the values of Congress — secularism, socialism, democracy, neutrality in foreign affairs — became the values of the republic. The reverence for Congress ran so deep that elections were a formality: until the Seventies, the party had no challenger. Then, in 1975, confronting the prospect of disqualification from parliament after being convicted by a lower court of violating election rules, prime minister Indira Gandhi declared a state of internal emergency, suspended the constitution and ruled as a dictator for 21 months.

During this period, internal democracy vanished completely from Congress. As party propagandists produced slogans extolling the prime minister (“Courage and Clarity of Vision, Thy Name is Indira Gandhi”), Indira’s older son, Sanjay, a dropout with no formal title in the government, gangsterised the party machinery by inserting his henchmen into its highest echelons, raided state banks and established a reign of terror. Fixated on “beautifying” the country and curbing the growth of population, he ordered the demolition of Muslim slums, paraded in chains those who defied him, and superintended the forcible sterilisation of 6.2 million men — 15 times the number of men sterilised by the Nazis.

Congress was booted out of office in 1977 when Indira Gandhi, desperate to redeem her standing in the West and assured by her intelligence officers of an easy victory, called a snap election. It was an extraordinary affirmation of Indian democracy as an overwhelming majority of mostly illiterate voters threw out a family that had come to regard itself as a native aristocracy.

Indian democracy opened up to competition; Congress, however, hardened into a hereditary dictatorship. The mystique of the dynasty has hypnotised generations of Westerners. Even during the most violent phase of her dictatorship, Indira Gandhi received praise, rather than rebukes, from figures as ideologically apart as Michael Foot and Robert McNamara. A decade later, when her son Rajiv addressed the US Congress after his administration presided over a pogrom of Sikhs, the Washington Post gushed: “Watching him, you had to believe in genes.” Barack Obama admitted in his memoir to being struck by the “dark, probing eyes” and “quiet, regal presence” of Rajiv Gandhi’s Italian-born widow (and Rahul Gandhi’s mother), Sonia. Her position, Obama wrote, was proof of “the enduring power of the family dynasty”.

Since Indira Gandhi’s defeat in 1977, the British Labour Party, the sister party of Congress, has elected a dozen leaders. Barring a brief interregnum in the 1990s caused by a death in the family, Congress, operating in the most populous democracy on earth, has not known a single leader outside one dynasty. Not even the existential threat to India from Modi’s sectarian rule has been able to galvanise it into democratising itself. Under Rahul Gandhi, it has been reduced to a paltry 52 seats in the Lok Sabha, the 545-seat lower house of parliament.

Last year, as Congress found itself out of power in all but two of India’s 28 states, the party reluctantly agreed to hold a leadership election — the first in nearly a quarter century. Since the electoral college was stacked entirely with voters handpicked by the Gandhi family, Rahul Gandhi chose not to enter the race in the hope of giving it the appearance of a fair contest.

But the election was a farce. The Gandhis nominated a proxy candidate: Mallikarjun Kharge, an 80-year-old subservient acolyte of the family from the southern state of Karnataka. Having spent two decades pitching Rahul Gandhi as the hope of India’s young, Congress picked as his surrogate a man born in the reign of George VI, the last emperor of British India.

Kharge’s opponent in the election was Shashi Tharoor, perhaps the only figure with the oratorical prowess, charisma and profile to rival Modi. As a high-ranking diplomat at the United Nations until 2007, Tharoor oversaw a gargantuan bureaucracy, supervised a complex international relief operation for refugees during the Vietnamese boat people crisis and helped negotiate the end of hostilities in the former Yugoslavia. A late entrant to Indian politics, he won three successive terms to parliament from the communist bastion of Kerala in southwestern India.

Tharoor’s record would make him a frontrunner for the leadership of almost any centrist party in the democratic world. In Congress, however, he was exposed to relentless abuse because he threatened, by virtue of his competence, to eclipse Gandhi. As the campaign got underway, Tharoor, who was among the most passionate advocates of internal reform in Congress, was instructed to withdraw in favour of a “consensus” candidate. When he did not, rumours were circulated to suggest that he was quitting the race. Some leaders took great pains to be seen to spurn him. Others hurled abuse at him. Jairam Ramesh, one of the most powerful functionaries in the party, undermined the election by calling it a “sideshow” even before a vote had been cast. Ramesh, the kind of buffoonish bawler found in every despotic set-up, is emblematic of so much that is wrong with Congress: a self-regarding sciolist who has never exposed himself to a lone popular election in his life and yet wields enormous clout by toadying up to the Gandhi dynasty.

Tharoor was prevented from campaigning in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous and politically important state, given voter lists without contact details and denied audience with state leaders of the party, who received Kharge with great fanfare. The unfairness of it all was obscured by the Bharat Jodo Yatra, a so-called “unity march” led by Rahul Gandhi that traversed the length of India as the internal elections happened. The objective of the march was not so much to “unify” India as to burnish Rahul Gandhi’s bruised reputation. He was made the focus of an expensive campaign designed to evoke comparisons with Mahatma Gandhi’s historic Salt March in 1930 against the British Empire.

It all paid off. Kharge was “elected” leader. And his first order of business was to pay tribute to the Gandhis by anointing Gandhi as the party’s prime ministerial candidate in the 2024 general election. Tharoor and his supporters were mercilessly marginalised. In March, a veteran of the Congress Party told me that there was a serious effort underway to make an “example” of Tharoor by stamping on his backers and engineering his defeat in the next general elections. 

Congress, built by India’s most revered founding fathers, remains the only political organisation that can rival the BJP’s reach and recognition across India. But its ability to restore democracy to India is being fatally undermined by its preoccupation with preserving dynastic despotism within the party. Its recent victory in the statewide election in Karnataka in southern India — naturally credited to Gandhi’s leadership — has deluded some Congresspersons into the belief that their party is poised to defeat Modi in next year’s general elections, and given rise to an ever more militant contest to display loyalty to the Gandhi dynasty. The result: Congress is arguably more feudal today than it was before the leadership contest.

Democracy is a collaborative enterprise: it cannot last if the opposition abdicates its duty. That’s why the prime minister does not wish to finish off Gandhi — his conviction will eventually be overturned by the higher courts — but wants to revive him, energise him with insults and help make him the sole face of opposition to Modi in the minds of voters. That is his path to winning a historic third term, and making secular democracy in India history. Gandhi, by refusing to vanish, is determined to help him achieve his goal.


Kapil Komireddi is the author of Malevolent Republic: A Short History of the New India (Hurst)

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Milton Gibbon
Milton Gibbon
1 year ago

Who would have thought that a culture predicated of the temporal superiority of a person based on their birth would have fallen into the trap of elevating a family based on historical antecedents?
In the USA, more strangely, the same thing happens – they could have had Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Clinton running right up to today.
I like Douglas Murray’s theory that in the UK we gather up our hereditary privilege in the monarchy which we have divested of political power which inoculates us against this sort of thing – no one asks, where are Thatcher’s children? Why doesn’t Blair’s son run for mayor? etc.
On a broader note why is the “secular” nature of India sacrosanct? If the people don’t want secularism and they accomplish their wish through democratic means (as in Turkey) then who are we to say they are wrong to do so? The fact that Modi has presided over huge economic growth through a crony capitalist system rather than the crony socialism employed by Congress for most of India’s independent history which has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty doesn’t seem to matter to the author. By singling out the Ghandis he overlooks the rampant, feudal corruption which the whole Congress party used to stifle the worlds largest and most diverse democracy after independence.

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago
Reply to  Milton Gibbon

The country that is supposedly “predicated of the temporal superiority of a person based on their birth” has
– a lower caste who wrote the constitution
– a lower caste prime minister and president
– has banned any form of caste discrimination since independence, inter caste marriages are common, and nobody cares to even know your caste.
– Has large caste based affirmative action quotas

Britain truly was appalled by the notion of caste. That’s why they denied the vast majority of Indians without education, infrastructure, clean water or electricity or basic healthcare, irrespective of their caste, when they were the rulers.

I guess that’s what you get with a coloniser predicated on racial supremacism, looting of colonies and slavery.

Last edited 1 year ago by Samir Iker
Milton Gibbon
Milton Gibbon
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

The fact that one family has had such an outsized impact upon a country which has all the attributes that you give to it is staggering and needs explaining. The fact that a lower caste wrote the constitution was a product of the British handover of power i.e. meritocracy trumping background. A quick check of Modi’s background is almost comical in it’s opaqueness – seems like he was born into a high-caste family until he changed the definition of “disadvantaged” for his own political gain.
All I can say is that British Indians know their own caste and I see no reason to believe that this is any better over in the subcontinent where you would expect it to be institutionalised, negatively, to a far greater extent. The EHRC report 2014 backs up this view:
research-report-91-caste-in-britain-socio-legal-review.pdf (equalityhumanrights.com)
The attack on the British imperial system is unbalanced – the current educational state of India, the infrastructure (famously the railways) and healthcare are based upon the British model, a case of “what did the British empire do for us?” (TM Monty Python). The scale of British India would provide a challenge for any state today – back then it was astonishing.

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago
Reply to  Milton Gibbon

“one family has had such an outsized impact upon a country”
Would agree with you, but attributing it to “caste” is a long stretch.

There was no “British model” for infrastructure, healthcare or anything. Contrary to what colony apologists want to believe, the vast majority of Indians had nothing at the time of independence: education, health services, road or sewage, even basic access to food was a struggle. Everything had to be built from scratch – even the much vaunted railways, which was an under invested mess in 1947.

“lower caste wrote the constitution was a product of the British handover of power i.e. meritocracy trumping background”
Wrong. The British handed over power to the likes of Nehru, who were all about background.
Nehru was the one, to his credit, who made Ambedkar the law minister. India post 1947 wasn’t perfect, but at least was a lot more about merit than it was pre 1947.
And the reason was that unlike the British, Indians themselves were clear from day one that merit would trump caste.
Incidentally, the British themselves, in their own country, were hardly about merit and all about background – as you should know.

“Modi’s …was born into a high-caste family until he changed the definition of “disadvantaged” for his own political gain”
Nope. He was as low class as they come.
Someone with a similar background to Modi would never reach close to the top in Britain.

Milton Gibbon
Milton Gibbon
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

Some evidence would be nice. You still haven’t explained how caste has trumped merit in post-independence India for the last 75 years. I think the BJP has done a lot of good freeing up the economy and that is where the crux lies – a fairer economy will naturally create a fairer society.
Criticising another country does not stop me criticising my own.

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago
Reply to  Milton Gibbon

You are right Milton, in a way, that caste still trumps merit, but not in the way you think.
There are enormous reservations for various lower or deprived castes in govt jobs and significant quotas in education – such that it’s practically impossible for an “upper” caste to get a govt job, and university cutoffs are ridiculously lower for “low” castes.

It’s a bit like “racism ‘ in the West. It used to be very bad, but now the supposed”victims” benefit from race quotas.

You still find Brahmins doing better in universities – but just like Jews in the West, it’s nothing to do with favourable treatment but despite the opposite if anything

Otherwise – you will have to take my word for it, but I have spent decades across various cities – caste is a non factor. No one cares about caste when making friends, promotions etc.

If you look at politics, especially, lower castes are dominant. Just sheer numbers.

I would add, there are three caveats.
First, arranged marriages are still caste based. That’s just inertia, as increasingly marriages are outside the arranged framework and indifferent to caste.
Secondly, there are certain specific castes which are still virulently casteist. They are in a minority, and typically in certain regions.
Finally, rural areas are still more backward in general. But as with the rest of the world, the cities are the future.

Last edited 1 year ago by Samir Iker
Charles Hedges
Charles Hedges
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

Actually Britain has far more upward social mobility than people realise. In the 1920s amnd 1930s sons of dockers could become RAF apprentices and the best were trained as pilots. Some 40% of pilots in the Battle of Britain were sergeants, many went on to become officers. No other country had sergeant pilots, they were all officers.
Ramsey MacDonald, Prime Minister was the illlegitimate son of farm labourer
Ramsay MacDonald – Wikipedia
Kier Hardie , leader of the labour Party went down the mines at twelve years of age.
Edward Heath Prime Minister was the son of a carpenter.
The post 1960s Labour Party and has done more to reduce upward mobility than any other.

Charles Hedges
Charles Hedges
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

Actually Britain has far more upward social mobility than people realise. In the 1920s amnd 1930s sons of dockers could become RAF apprentices and the best were trained as pilots. Some 40% of pilots in the Battle of Britain were sergeants, many went on to become officers. No other country had sergeant pilots, they were all officers.
Ramsey MacDonald, Prime Minister was the illlegitimate son of farm labourer
Ramsay MacDonald – Wikipedia
Kier Hardie , leader of the labour Party went down the mines at twelve years of age.
Edward Heath Prime Minister was the son of a carpenter.
The post 1960s Labour Party and has done more to reduce upward mobility than any other.

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago
Reply to  Milton Gibbon

You are right Milton, in a way, that caste still trumps merit, but not in the way you think.
There are enormous reservations for various lower or deprived castes in govt jobs and significant quotas in education – such that it’s practically impossible for an “upper” caste to get a govt job, and university cutoffs are ridiculously lower for “low” castes.

It’s a bit like “racism ‘ in the West. It used to be very bad, but now the supposed”victims” benefit from race quotas.

You still find Brahmins doing better in universities – but just like Jews in the West, it’s nothing to do with favourable treatment but despite the opposite if anything

Otherwise – you will have to take my word for it, but I have spent decades across various cities – caste is a non factor. No one cares about caste when making friends, promotions etc.

If you look at politics, especially, lower castes are dominant. Just sheer numbers.

I would add, there are three caveats.
First, arranged marriages are still caste based. That’s just inertia, as increasingly marriages are outside the arranged framework and indifferent to caste.
Secondly, there are certain specific castes which are still virulently casteist. They are in a minority, and typically in certain regions.
Finally, rural areas are still more backward in general. But as with the rest of the world, the cities are the future.

Last edited 1 year ago by Samir Iker
michael harris
michael harris
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

I’m not sure, but you can be a lot lower in caste than Modi. You can be, literally, an out caste, a Dalit. Or even further adrift, a ‘tribal’ (aboriginal).
As I understand it Modi is from the lowest rung of the 4 caste ‘Varna’ system, the Sudras – very roughly speaking the working classes of the old Brahmanical peoples who moved into India in the 3rd millennium BC. Not twice born. not wearing the sacred thread. But still, though ‘deplorable’, one of ‘us’. Any further out and the RSS would not have taken him up and schooled him.

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago
Reply to  michael harris

We can quibble about where Modi falls exactly. Yes, he isn’t at the absolute bottom, but he is pretty much lower class. Far lower than anybody who might be elected president of the US or prime minister of Amy European nation, and primarily because he had done good work.

That while story about “Brahmanical” people is a bit of a fairy tale really, even though taken as gospel till a few decades back. But even if you believe it, the sudras were supposed to be “deplorable”.

Modi being the prime minister is the equivalent of a dirt poor black becoming president of the US several decades back.

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago
Reply to  michael harris

We can quibble about where Modi falls exactly. Yes, he isn’t at the absolute bottom, but he is pretty much lower class. Far lower than anybody who might be elected president of the US or prime minister of Amy European nation, and primarily because he had done good work.

That while story about “Brahmanical” people is a bit of a fairy tale really, even though taken as gospel till a few decades back. But even if you believe it, the sudras were supposed to be “deplorable”.

Modi being the prime minister is the equivalent of a dirt poor black becoming president of the US several decades back.

Milton Gibbon
Milton Gibbon
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

Some evidence would be nice. You still haven’t explained how caste has trumped merit in post-independence India for the last 75 years. I think the BJP has done a lot of good freeing up the economy and that is where the crux lies – a fairer economy will naturally create a fairer society.
Criticising another country does not stop me criticising my own.

michael harris
michael harris
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

I’m not sure, but you can be a lot lower in caste than Modi. You can be, literally, an out caste, a Dalit. Or even further adrift, a ‘tribal’ (aboriginal).
As I understand it Modi is from the lowest rung of the 4 caste ‘Varna’ system, the Sudras – very roughly speaking the working classes of the old Brahmanical peoples who moved into India in the 3rd millennium BC. Not twice born. not wearing the sacred thread. But still, though ‘deplorable’, one of ‘us’. Any further out and the RSS would not have taken him up and schooled him.

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago
Reply to  Milton Gibbon

I should add:
“what did the British empire do for us”
The British, a lot. Invented most of modern sports, and enormous contribution to science, maths, engineering, literature.

The British empire, though was utterly cr*p. Which is more a reflection of autocracy and empires than British.

I think it’s a pity that modern days Brits seem ashamed to be proud of their country’s scientific achievements, but seem to think criticism of their old empire is criticism of modern day Brits

Sayantani Gupta Jafa
Sayantani Gupta Jafa
1 year ago
Reply to  Milton Gibbon

Please donot write nonsense. Modi is a Ghanchi by caste which is a Backward caste. And it is the British post 1857 who deliberately reified caste as a category to divide and rule India.

Charles Hedges
Charles Hedges
1 year ago

Actually Britain tried to reduce caste, hence exams. Britain used to reward the Indian rulers fro opening up schools and hospitals with
Order of the Indian Empire – Wikipedia
The East India Company and then the ICS, Army, Police, Forestry Service, Police, The Law , schoools and universities all based selection and promotion on exams not caste or religion. Prince Ranji went to Cambridge in the 19th century
Ranjitsinhji – Wikipedia
and Nehru to Harrow in 1905 and Cambridge.
In the 19th century Indian were elected to the Royal Society
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardaseer_Cursetjee
and made baronets
Jejeebhoy baronets – Wikipedia
In 1946 Havildar Umrao Singh VC said
“When I went to London to receive my VC , I had a wonderful moustache in those days. And a lot of of women came up and kissed me on the moustache.” Would a Brahmin woman kiss a brave Untouchable who had won the VC?

Charles Hedges
Charles Hedges
1 year ago

Actually Britain tried to reduce caste, hence exams. Britain used to reward the Indian rulers fro opening up schools and hospitals with
Order of the Indian Empire – Wikipedia
The East India Company and then the ICS, Army, Police, Forestry Service, Police, The Law , schoools and universities all based selection and promotion on exams not caste or religion. Prince Ranji went to Cambridge in the 19th century
Ranjitsinhji – Wikipedia
and Nehru to Harrow in 1905 and Cambridge.
In the 19th century Indian were elected to the Royal Society
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardaseer_Cursetjee
and made baronets
Jejeebhoy baronets – Wikipedia
In 1946 Havildar Umrao Singh VC said
“When I went to London to receive my VC , I had a wonderful moustache in those days. And a lot of of women came up and kissed me on the moustache.” Would a Brahmin woman kiss a brave Untouchable who had won the VC?

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago
Reply to  Milton Gibbon

“one family has had such an outsized impact upon a country”
Would agree with you, but attributing it to “caste” is a long stretch.

There was no “British model” for infrastructure, healthcare or anything. Contrary to what colony apologists want to believe, the vast majority of Indians had nothing at the time of independence: education, health services, road or sewage, even basic access to food was a struggle. Everything had to be built from scratch – even the much vaunted railways, which was an under invested mess in 1947.

“lower caste wrote the constitution was a product of the British handover of power i.e. meritocracy trumping background”
Wrong. The British handed over power to the likes of Nehru, who were all about background.
Nehru was the one, to his credit, who made Ambedkar the law minister. India post 1947 wasn’t perfect, but at least was a lot more about merit than it was pre 1947.
And the reason was that unlike the British, Indians themselves were clear from day one that merit would trump caste.
Incidentally, the British themselves, in their own country, were hardly about merit and all about background – as you should know.

“Modi’s …was born into a high-caste family until he changed the definition of “disadvantaged” for his own political gain”
Nope. He was as low class as they come.
Someone with a similar background to Modi would never reach close to the top in Britain.

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago
Reply to  Milton Gibbon

I should add:
“what did the British empire do for us”
The British, a lot. Invented most of modern sports, and enormous contribution to science, maths, engineering, literature.

The British empire, though was utterly cr*p. Which is more a reflection of autocracy and empires than British.

I think it’s a pity that modern days Brits seem ashamed to be proud of their country’s scientific achievements, but seem to think criticism of their old empire is criticism of modern day Brits

Sayantani Gupta Jafa
Sayantani Gupta Jafa
1 year ago
Reply to  Milton Gibbon

Please donot write nonsense. Modi is a Ghanchi by caste which is a Backward caste. And it is the British post 1857 who deliberately reified caste as a category to divide and rule India.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

What an ungrateful little rant!

Would you have any better under say French,Dutch, or even Portuguese control? The historical records says emphatically NO.

However even I must grudgingly admit that at least the French would have taught ‘you’ how to cook.

Milton Gibbon
Milton Gibbon
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

The fact that one family has had such an outsized impact upon a country which has all the attributes that you give to it is staggering and needs explaining. The fact that a lower caste wrote the constitution was a product of the British handover of power i.e. meritocracy trumping background. A quick check of Modi’s background is almost comical in it’s opaqueness – seems like he was born into a high-caste family until he changed the definition of “disadvantaged” for his own political gain.
All I can say is that British Indians know their own caste and I see no reason to believe that this is any better over in the subcontinent where you would expect it to be institutionalised, negatively, to a far greater extent. The EHRC report 2014 backs up this view:
research-report-91-caste-in-britain-socio-legal-review.pdf (equalityhumanrights.com)
The attack on the British imperial system is unbalanced – the current educational state of India, the infrastructure (famously the railways) and healthcare are based upon the British model, a case of “what did the British empire do for us?” (TM Monty Python). The scale of British India would provide a challenge for any state today – back then it was astonishing.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

What an ungrateful little rant!

Would you have any better under say French,Dutch, or even Portuguese control? The historical records says emphatically NO.

However even I must grudgingly admit that at least the French would have taught ‘you’ how to cook.

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago
Reply to  Milton Gibbon

The country that is supposedly “predicated of the temporal superiority of a person based on their birth” has
– a lower caste who wrote the constitution
– a lower caste prime minister and president
– has banned any form of caste discrimination since independence, inter caste marriages are common, and nobody cares to even know your caste.
– Has large caste based affirmative action quotas

Britain truly was appalled by the notion of caste. That’s why they denied the vast majority of Indians without education, infrastructure, clean water or electricity or basic healthcare, irrespective of their caste, when they were the rulers.

I guess that’s what you get with a coloniser predicated on racial supremacism, looting of colonies and slavery.

Last edited 1 year ago by Samir Iker
Milton Gibbon
Milton Gibbon
1 year ago

Who would have thought that a culture predicated of the temporal superiority of a person based on their birth would have fallen into the trap of elevating a family based on historical antecedents?
In the USA, more strangely, the same thing happens – they could have had Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Clinton running right up to today.
I like Douglas Murray’s theory that in the UK we gather up our hereditary privilege in the monarchy which we have divested of political power which inoculates us against this sort of thing – no one asks, where are Thatcher’s children? Why doesn’t Blair’s son run for mayor? etc.
On a broader note why is the “secular” nature of India sacrosanct? If the people don’t want secularism and they accomplish their wish through democratic means (as in Turkey) then who are we to say they are wrong to do so? The fact that Modi has presided over huge economic growth through a crony capitalist system rather than the crony socialism employed by Congress for most of India’s independent history which has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty doesn’t seem to matter to the author. By singling out the Ghandis he overlooks the rampant, feudal corruption which the whole Congress party used to stifle the worlds largest and most diverse democracy after independence.

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago

For all the heart rending claims about “Hindu supremacist”, it’s still the muslims in India who enjoy special religion based laws, avoid state supervision of their religious sites, riot at the least provocation.

But if they really want, we can treat them the way religious minorities are treated in islamic countries. Maybe just like the Turks with Armenian Christians, Saudis with non muslim immigrant workers, or perhaps just borrow blasphemy laws and exterminate them like their brothers in Pakistan did with their minorities on the other side of the border.

Naren Savani
Naren Savani
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

The author of the article is really “a useful idiot” for the Guardian and it’s ilk

Naren Savani
Naren Savani
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

The author of the article is really “a useful idiot” for the Guardian and it’s ilk

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago

For all the heart rending claims about “Hindu supremacist”, it’s still the muslims in India who enjoy special religion based laws, avoid state supervision of their religious sites, riot at the least provocation.

But if they really want, we can treat them the way religious minorities are treated in islamic countries. Maybe just like the Turks with Armenian Christians, Saudis with non muslim immigrant workers, or perhaps just borrow blasphemy laws and exterminate them like their brothers in Pakistan did with their minorities on the other side of the border.

Prashant Kotak
Prashant Kotak
1 year ago

Oh great, yet another graun approved opinioniser about India, saunters over to UnHerd, and plays out all the old favourite tunes. Has the Scott Trust taken a majority shareholding in UnHerd or something?

Prashant Kotak
Prashant Kotak
1 year ago

Oh great, yet another graun approved opinioniser about India, saunters over to UnHerd, and plays out all the old favourite tunes. Has the Scott Trust taken a majority shareholding in UnHerd or something?

Charles Hedges
Charles Hedges
1 year ago

Wellington served many years in India. He said England’s greatest asset was her honesty. Wellington condsidered his most important asset was he was considered a gentleman. A gentleman does not lie because that is cowardice. A gentleman is true to his word and is honest.
When Wellington entered France the people were amazed at the honesty of the British troops, those guilty of theft were quickly hanged. A hotel keeper was amazed that a British Brigadier paid for his food. The British paid a fair price for provisions and did not steal. Consequently, the locals sold provisions to the British and Wellington saved two divisions from having to protect convoys.
Can democracy exist in any country if people are liars, corrupt, cowards and not true to their word? Are the authors description of India little different to the politics of many inner city areas in the West ?

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago
Reply to  Charles Hedges

The golden rule of thieving is, steal big, don’t bother about petty change
Clearly the British empire was a master of the art.

Charles Hedges
Charles Hedges
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

Britain passed on various attributes, one of which is democracy, another is the Armed Forces keeping out of politics. K S Lal has stated the Muslim Turk invasions of India from 1000 AD to 1750 AD resulted in 88M deaths, Britain put a stop to them.
Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent – Wikipedia
The population of India increased from about 200M in the 1870s to 400M in the 1940s. Millions of Indians volunteered to fight for the British in WW1 and WW2 and many won medals for bravery.
Britain introduced railways which has probably increased the wealth of all peoples far more than any invention. Other developments include irrigation schemes; telegraphs, docks, harbours, law,electricity, western technology and medicine, concrete , newspapers, freedom of speech, The English Language. Where would the Indian software Industry be without the English Language?
The Indian Civil Service, Armed Forces, The Police, Railways, Forestry Service , Universities and Law Courts all helped to unite India and where entry and promotions were based upon merit and therefore creating a meritocracy.
If Nalanda and Vikramashila universities had not been destroyed, Indians may have developed the physics of Newton, Faraday and Clerk Maxwell and the Industrial Revolutions before the British but this did not happen.
What are the concepts of democracy, freedom of thought and action, rule of law underpinning justice for all, science and technology worth?

Sayantani Gupta Jafa
Sayantani Gupta Jafa
1 year ago
Reply to  Charles Hedges

As a historian who is researching another book about the 1940s transfer of power I will say that the most positive attributes of British India were pre 1857. After power passed to the Crown it became more and more defensive and racist, and bent on survival through Divide and Rule tactics. The armed forces were perhaps the biggest contribution along with the Railways. And the Macaulay education reforms as well as the pre 1857 social reforms.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago

I would have thought that there is quite a good case for saying that 1857 was a disaster, and that the Honourable East India Company (HEIC) should have been left in control.

Even prior to 1857 the feeble minded Crown had forced the HEIC to accept hordes of evangelical missionaries bringing muscular Christianity to the subcontinent.
Worse still was the influx of white women, bringing with them all very worst aspects of Victorian snobbery, racism and sexually neurotic behaviour.

Charles Hedges
Charles Hedges
1 year ago

Prince Ranji played cricket for England in the 19th century and Nehru went to Harrow and then Cambridge . Gandhi, Nehru and Jinnah were all English Barristers.
Indians were elected FRS.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardaseer_Cursetjee
Indians were granted knighthoods and baronetcies.
Jejeebhoy baronets – Wikipedia
There was no bar for entry to universities and schools.
The ICS and ArmedForces were open to all Indians after 1919 and by 1940s, there were Indians who were Brigadiers. Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw MC started his career in the British Army.
Sam Manekshaw – Wikipedia
Sam Manekshaw – Wikiquote
A ‘yes man’ is a dangerous man. He is a menace. He will go very far. He can become a minister, a secretary or a Field Marshal but he can never become a leader nor, ever be respected. He will be used by his superiors, disliked by his colleagues and despised by his subordinates. So discard the ‘yes man’.
True of all civilisations, for all times.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago

I would have thought that there is quite a good case for saying that 1857 was a disaster, and that the Honourable East India Company (HEIC) should have been left in control.

Even prior to 1857 the feeble minded Crown had forced the HEIC to accept hordes of evangelical missionaries bringing muscular Christianity to the subcontinent.
Worse still was the influx of white women, bringing with them all very worst aspects of Victorian snobbery, racism and sexually neurotic behaviour.

Charles Hedges
Charles Hedges
1 year ago

Prince Ranji played cricket for England in the 19th century and Nehru went to Harrow and then Cambridge . Gandhi, Nehru and Jinnah were all English Barristers.
Indians were elected FRS.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardaseer_Cursetjee
Indians were granted knighthoods and baronetcies.
Jejeebhoy baronets – Wikipedia
There was no bar for entry to universities and schools.
The ICS and ArmedForces were open to all Indians after 1919 and by 1940s, there were Indians who were Brigadiers. Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw MC started his career in the British Army.
Sam Manekshaw – Wikipedia
Sam Manekshaw – Wikiquote
A ‘yes man’ is a dangerous man. He is a menace. He will go very far. He can become a minister, a secretary or a Field Marshal but he can never become a leader nor, ever be respected. He will be used by his superiors, disliked by his colleagues and despised by his subordinates. So discard the ‘yes man’.
True of all civilisations, for all times.

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago
Reply to  Charles Hedges

I wouldn’t disagree the contributions of Britain in many fields are extraordinary. And yes, it was an enormous improvement on the islamic empires that came before, but nobody seems to mention that.

But – as was the case with England after 1066 – being colonised by a foreign invader is never a good outcome.
The net outcome of Britain’s existance – the positives from borrowing inventions and scientific developments, law, from Britain versus the negatives from being colonised – would be greatly positive. But there is a reason why India developed so much faster after 1947, despite a lot of the leadership being utterly incompetent.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

“But – as was the case with England after 1066 – being colonised by a foreign invader is never a good outcome.”

Nonsense I’m afraid. The Norman Conquest brought enormous benefits, not the least
being that England was dragged back into ‘mainstream’ Europe rather than languishing in a murderous Scandinavian backwater.

Last edited 1 year ago by Charles Stanhope
Charles Hedges
Charles Hedges
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

I would suggest the success of Britain was due to thecombination of various races. The Celts provide people who are capable of greats leaps of imagination which are needed for massive jumps in technology. The Anglo Saxon provide a common sense down to prctical earth egalitarian view of life. The Vikings provided immense physical energy, fortitude and a thirst for adventure. The Norman combined Viking energy with a Frankish discipline and an ability to learn from others.
If we say development in India what about the increase in population from 1870 to 1940s?
Perhaps the greatest diaster for India was so many Congress types were educated at the LSE which held back industrial devlopment for decades. Laski had done more damage to India than any other Briton.
There were no colour bars at British schools and universities. Indian were elected to the Royal Society in the 19th century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardaseer_Cursetjee
Prince Ranji played for Cambridge University and England, while Nehru went to Harrow and Trinity, Cambridge. Indians were awarded baronetcies and knighthoods in the 19th century,
Jejeebhoy baronets – Wikipedia
became judges and barristers ( Nehru’s Father) and ICS and Army were open to all from 1919. By 1947 there were Indian Brigadiers.
Comment by Havildar Singh VC. “When I went to London to receive my VC, I had a wonderful moustache in those days. And a lot of women came up and kissed me on my moustache”.Forgotten Voice of Burma p368. In Assoc with Imperial war Museum.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

“But – as was the case with England after 1066 – being colonised by a foreign invader is never a good outcome.”

Nonsense I’m afraid. The Norman Conquest brought enormous benefits, not the least
being that England was dragged back into ‘mainstream’ Europe rather than languishing in a murderous Scandinavian backwater.

Last edited 1 year ago by Charles Stanhope
Charles Hedges
Charles Hedges
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

I would suggest the success of Britain was due to thecombination of various races. The Celts provide people who are capable of greats leaps of imagination which are needed for massive jumps in technology. The Anglo Saxon provide a common sense down to prctical earth egalitarian view of life. The Vikings provided immense physical energy, fortitude and a thirst for adventure. The Norman combined Viking energy with a Frankish discipline and an ability to learn from others.
If we say development in India what about the increase in population from 1870 to 1940s?
Perhaps the greatest diaster for India was so many Congress types were educated at the LSE which held back industrial devlopment for decades. Laski had done more damage to India than any other Briton.
There were no colour bars at British schools and universities. Indian were elected to the Royal Society in the 19th century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardaseer_Cursetjee
Prince Ranji played for Cambridge University and England, while Nehru went to Harrow and Trinity, Cambridge. Indians were awarded baronetcies and knighthoods in the 19th century,
Jejeebhoy baronets – Wikipedia
became judges and barristers ( Nehru’s Father) and ICS and Army were open to all from 1919. By 1947 there were Indian Brigadiers.
Comment by Havildar Singh VC. “When I went to London to receive my VC, I had a wonderful moustache in those days. And a lot of women came up and kissed me on my moustache”.Forgotten Voice of Burma p368. In Assoc with Imperial war Museum.

Sayantani Gupta Jafa
Sayantani Gupta Jafa
1 year ago
Reply to  Charles Hedges

As a historian who is researching another book about the 1940s transfer of power I will say that the most positive attributes of British India were pre 1857. After power passed to the Crown it became more and more defensive and racist, and bent on survival through Divide and Rule tactics. The armed forces were perhaps the biggest contribution along with the Railways. And the Macaulay education reforms as well as the pre 1857 social reforms.

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago
Reply to  Charles Hedges

I wouldn’t disagree the contributions of Britain in many fields are extraordinary. And yes, it was an enormous improvement on the islamic empires that came before, but nobody seems to mention that.

But – as was the case with England after 1066 – being colonised by a foreign invader is never a good outcome.
The net outcome of Britain’s existance – the positives from borrowing inventions and scientific developments, law, from Britain versus the negatives from being colonised – would be greatly positive. But there is a reason why India developed so much faster after 1947, despite a lot of the leadership being utterly incompetent.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

Nader Shah did more damage in one afternoon than we managed in years. In fact he makes us look like rank amateurs.

Last edited 1 year ago by Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

Vae victis!

Charles Hedges
Charles Hedges
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

Britain passed on various attributes, one of which is democracy, another is the Armed Forces keeping out of politics. K S Lal has stated the Muslim Turk invasions of India from 1000 AD to 1750 AD resulted in 88M deaths, Britain put a stop to them.
Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent – Wikipedia
The population of India increased from about 200M in the 1870s to 400M in the 1940s. Millions of Indians volunteered to fight for the British in WW1 and WW2 and many won medals for bravery.
Britain introduced railways which has probably increased the wealth of all peoples far more than any invention. Other developments include irrigation schemes; telegraphs, docks, harbours, law,electricity, western technology and medicine, concrete , newspapers, freedom of speech, The English Language. Where would the Indian software Industry be without the English Language?
The Indian Civil Service, Armed Forces, The Police, Railways, Forestry Service , Universities and Law Courts all helped to unite India and where entry and promotions were based upon merit and therefore creating a meritocracy.
If Nalanda and Vikramashila universities had not been destroyed, Indians may have developed the physics of Newton, Faraday and Clerk Maxwell and the Industrial Revolutions before the British but this did not happen.
What are the concepts of democracy, freedom of thought and action, rule of law underpinning justice for all, science and technology worth?

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

Nader Shah did more damage in one afternoon than we managed in years. In fact he makes us look like rank amateurs.

Last edited 1 year ago by Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

Vae victis!

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago
Reply to  Charles Hedges

The golden rule of thieving is, steal big, don’t bother about petty change
Clearly the British empire was a master of the art.

Charles Hedges
Charles Hedges
1 year ago

Wellington served many years in India. He said England’s greatest asset was her honesty. Wellington condsidered his most important asset was he was considered a gentleman. A gentleman does not lie because that is cowardice. A gentleman is true to his word and is honest.
When Wellington entered France the people were amazed at the honesty of the British troops, those guilty of theft were quickly hanged. A hotel keeper was amazed that a British Brigadier paid for his food. The British paid a fair price for provisions and did not steal. Consequently, the locals sold provisions to the British and Wellington saved two divisions from having to protect convoys.
Can democracy exist in any country if people are liars, corrupt, cowards and not true to their word? Are the authors description of India little different to the politics of many inner city areas in the West ?

Sayantani Gupta Jafa
Sayantani Gupta Jafa
1 year ago

Your analysis is clouded by the Modi Derangement Syndrome you suffer from. Have academics like you who deserted India for foreign campuses seen the lurch towards venality, corruption, violence, dysfunction and a completely bankrupt Opposition since the 1970s? And what kind of amnesia do you have about Nehru, the architect of modern India’s disastrous socialist turn since the 1950s? An idiotic foreign policy for which we are still paying a price. An authoritarian dynastic man who propped up his daughter since the late 1950s, introduced corruption by stealth through the string of cases like the Mundhra case and the Jeep scandal, dismissed democratic governments as in Kerala? And espoused a fake secularism by not introducing laicite of the French kind but only pampering minorities and destroying every institution the British had left?
Modi is not perfect but dilletante dandies like Tharoor are no match. The only leader of the Opposition who is clean and dynamic is Sachin Pilot who the Gandhi’s have sidelined to oblivion.
And what supremacism are you talking about? Any idea about the violence against Hindus unleashed in Bengal by the vicious Mamta Banerjee or Kerala by the putrid Communists or Jharkhand by Islamo Fascists aligned with a ragtag venal Opposition?
Don’t write agit prop propaganda from the safe shores abroad and pass it off as ” facts”.

Charles Hedges
Charles Hedges
1 year ago

The LSE and Laski are responsible for India’s socialism which slowed down economic growth. Tharoor does come across like a character from Waugh’s “Brideshead Revisited ” .

Sayantani Gupta Jafa
Sayantani Gupta Jafa
1 year ago
Reply to  Charles Hedges

Nehruvian Socialism was a disaster. Even if you could justify the 1st two Five Year Plans, 1961- when East Asia was just taking off- was a horrific turn for the Indian economy. If you read Lee Kuan Yews autobiography its startling( especially for one who belongs to the city)that he drew inspiration from Calcutta for transforming Singapore. Nehru ruined Bengal and Calcutta’s sophisticated global linkages via British owned corporates through ” freight equalization ” policies ruining jute, tea and heavy industrial manufacturing forever. His daughter completed the economic immiseration with bank nationalization. Today the Congress party is out to recover disastrous welfarism and barter away economic strength in whichever State they rule.
Armchair ideologues like Komireddi safely ensconced with foreign universities can write nonsense glorifying such venal political creeds since they don’t have to live and work in India and couldn’t bother if corrupt Opposition parties ruin the Indian economy- as their incomes are safe.

Charles Hedges
Charles Hedges
1 year ago

Thank you for your explantions. I never realised Nehru was such as disaster and I would not be surprised he had been advised by LSE graduates. The LSE planned the East African Ground Nut Scheme in the 1940s and 1950s and by going against Unilever’s advice, produced a disaster.
I shall read Lee Kwan Yews autobiography, a family friend used to be his next door neighbour. LKY was one of the most astute politicians post WW2.
I am optimistic for India because the vast majority of people are industrious; enterprising; respect education; believe in the family; save money, there is a free press, freedom of speech; respect Rules as shown by their love of cricket; have a sense of humour hence popularity P J Wodehouse and the Armed Forces have high standards and keep out of politcs. Hopefully, Indian governments will not pursue vast contsruction projects which can never be paid off. A Chinese billionaire considered 45 % of debt will never paid back.
Any technical problems facing India can be solved by Indian engineers and scientists. I suggest the threats to India is the government getting involved in absurd expensive grandiose projects to bolster the egos of a few politicians and becoming involved in external affairs without thinking about long term consequences. Indian involvement in Sri Lanka has alienated The Sinhalese who have a bankrupt government and resulted in Chinese naval base being built on the island. The greatest long term consequence of conflict with Pakistan may be Chinese investment in a near bankrupt country. India being surrounded by Chinese bases – Sri Lanka, burma, Pkistan and Himalays will not be good for the country.

Sayantani Gupta Jafa
Sayantani Gupta Jafa
1 year ago
Reply to  Charles Hedges

Nehru was proto Marxist. His Defence Minister Menon fully so. India has a tough situation now with a Chinese encirclement. Plus a lot of Deep State encouragement of fissiparous forces. But PM Modi has huge support and his vision will possibly see us through.

Sayantani Gupta Jafa
Sayantani Gupta Jafa
1 year ago
Reply to  Charles Hedges

Nehru was proto Marxist. His Defence Minister Menon fully so. India has a tough situation now with a Chinese encirclement. Plus a lot of Deep State encouragement of fissiparous forces. But PM Modi has huge support and his vision will possibly see us through.

Charles Hedges
Charles Hedges
1 year ago

Thank you for your explantions. I never realised Nehru was such as disaster and I would not be surprised he had been advised by LSE graduates. The LSE planned the East African Ground Nut Scheme in the 1940s and 1950s and by going against Unilever’s advice, produced a disaster.
I shall read Lee Kwan Yews autobiography, a family friend used to be his next door neighbour. LKY was one of the most astute politicians post WW2.
I am optimistic for India because the vast majority of people are industrious; enterprising; respect education; believe in the family; save money, there is a free press, freedom of speech; respect Rules as shown by their love of cricket; have a sense of humour hence popularity P J Wodehouse and the Armed Forces have high standards and keep out of politcs. Hopefully, Indian governments will not pursue vast contsruction projects which can never be paid off. A Chinese billionaire considered 45 % of debt will never paid back.
Any technical problems facing India can be solved by Indian engineers and scientists. I suggest the threats to India is the government getting involved in absurd expensive grandiose projects to bolster the egos of a few politicians and becoming involved in external affairs without thinking about long term consequences. Indian involvement in Sri Lanka has alienated The Sinhalese who have a bankrupt government and resulted in Chinese naval base being built on the island. The greatest long term consequence of conflict with Pakistan may be Chinese investment in a near bankrupt country. India being surrounded by Chinese bases – Sri Lanka, burma, Pkistan and Himalays will not be good for the country.

Sayantani Gupta Jafa
Sayantani Gupta Jafa
1 year ago
Reply to  Charles Hedges

More Sebastian than Charles I assure you with shades of Rex Mottram thrown in large doses.

Sayantani Gupta Jafa
Sayantani Gupta Jafa
1 year ago
Reply to  Charles Hedges

Nehruvian Socialism was a disaster. Even if you could justify the 1st two Five Year Plans, 1961- when East Asia was just taking off- was a horrific turn for the Indian economy. If you read Lee Kuan Yews autobiography its startling( especially for one who belongs to the city)that he drew inspiration from Calcutta for transforming Singapore. Nehru ruined Bengal and Calcutta’s sophisticated global linkages via British owned corporates through ” freight equalization ” policies ruining jute, tea and heavy industrial manufacturing forever. His daughter completed the economic immiseration with bank nationalization. Today the Congress party is out to recover disastrous welfarism and barter away economic strength in whichever State they rule.
Armchair ideologues like Komireddi safely ensconced with foreign universities can write nonsense glorifying such venal political creeds since they don’t have to live and work in India and couldn’t bother if corrupt Opposition parties ruin the Indian economy- as their incomes are safe.

Sayantani Gupta Jafa
Sayantani Gupta Jafa
1 year ago
Reply to  Charles Hedges

More Sebastian than Charles I assure you with shades of Rex Mottram thrown in large doses.

Charles Hedges
Charles Hedges
1 year ago

The LSE and Laski are responsible for India’s socialism which slowed down economic growth. Tharoor does come across like a character from Waugh’s “Brideshead Revisited ” .

Sayantani Gupta Jafa
Sayantani Gupta Jafa
1 year ago

Your analysis is clouded by the Modi Derangement Syndrome you suffer from. Have academics like you who deserted India for foreign campuses seen the lurch towards venality, corruption, violence, dysfunction and a completely bankrupt Opposition since the 1970s? And what kind of amnesia do you have about Nehru, the architect of modern India’s disastrous socialist turn since the 1950s? An idiotic foreign policy for which we are still paying a price. An authoritarian dynastic man who propped up his daughter since the late 1950s, introduced corruption by stealth through the string of cases like the Mundhra case and the Jeep scandal, dismissed democratic governments as in Kerala? And espoused a fake secularism by not introducing laicite of the French kind but only pampering minorities and destroying every institution the British had left?
Modi is not perfect but dilletante dandies like Tharoor are no match. The only leader of the Opposition who is clean and dynamic is Sachin Pilot who the Gandhi’s have sidelined to oblivion.
And what supremacism are you talking about? Any idea about the violence against Hindus unleashed in Bengal by the vicious Mamta Banerjee or Kerala by the putrid Communists or Jharkhand by Islamo Fascists aligned with a ragtag venal Opposition?
Don’t write agit prop propaganda from the safe shores abroad and pass it off as ” facts”.

Brendan O'Leary
Brendan O'Leary
1 year ago

Gujarat was the most functional state in India when Modi was in charge there.

He’s doing as good a job in the national chair as anybody has since independence.

The slurs against him mostly centre around allegations that he “condoned” (i.e. had nothing to do with) anti Muslim violence, like India never had sectarian killings before.

Brendan O'Leary
Brendan O'Leary
1 year ago

Gujarat was the most functional state in India when Modi was in charge there.

He’s doing as good a job in the national chair as anybody has since independence.

The slurs against him mostly centre around allegations that he “condoned” (i.e. had nothing to do with) anti Muslim violence, like India never had sectarian killings before.

Charlie Two
Charlie Two
1 year ago

We are constantly berated about the Amritsar massacre in 1921(?), ignoring the other 2 more bloody, Indian perpetrated massacres. but not just those, also the sterilisation of 6 million men, thousands of innocents butchered in other massacres etc etc et el etc? we’re just so Wacist! and Evil! uniquely so. right.

Paul Devlin
Paul Devlin
1 year ago
Reply to  Charlie Two

What were the other two massacres you mention, Charlie? I’m sure there’s been loads, mind you

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  Charlie Two

FYI.
A comparative analysis of Bloody*Sunday in 1972 and Amritsar in 1919 reveals the following:-

I Para’s shooting left much to be desired. 108 rounds fired for 26 hits. Proportionately ‘worse’ than the Gurkhas, Sikhs and Sinde Rifles, at Amritsar* 53 years earlier. (*1650 rounds fired for an estimated:- 379 to 1,500 or more killed and over 1,200 injured.)

(* Referred to by some as ‘Good Sunday’)

Last edited 1 year ago by Charles Stanhope
Paul Devlin
Paul Devlin
1 year ago
Reply to  Charlie Two

What were the other two massacres you mention, Charlie? I’m sure there’s been loads, mind you

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  Charlie Two

FYI.
A comparative analysis of Bloody*Sunday in 1972 and Amritsar in 1919 reveals the following:-

I Para’s shooting left much to be desired. 108 rounds fired for 26 hits. Proportionately ‘worse’ than the Gurkhas, Sikhs and Sinde Rifles, at Amritsar* 53 years earlier. (*1650 rounds fired for an estimated:- 379 to 1,500 or more killed and over 1,200 injured.)

(* Referred to by some as ‘Good Sunday’)

Last edited 1 year ago by Charles Stanhope
Charlie Two
Charlie Two
1 year ago

We are constantly berated about the Amritsar massacre in 1921(?), ignoring the other 2 more bloody, Indian perpetrated massacres. but not just those, also the sterilisation of 6 million men, thousands of innocents butchered in other massacres etc etc et el etc? we’re just so Wacist! and Evil! uniquely so. right.