Ramachandra Guha: Parallels between CPI(M)'s Jyoti Basu and BJP's Narendra Modi are cause for alarm
After Narendra Modi took control of the Bharatiya Janata Party, his party won majorities on its own in the general elections of 2014 and 2019, a feat it never came close to achieving before. Once restricted in its influence to the north and the west, the BJP has made serious inroads into the east and south as well. Before Modi made his national ambitions known, few would have thought that the BJP could become the second-largest party in West Bengal, come to power on its own in Assam, and have a shot at winning power in Telangana as well.
However, the impressive electoral success of the BJP has not been translated into effective governance. After Narendra Modi came to power in May 2014, India has lost its way economically, socially, morally and institutionally. Demonetisation and a botched Goods and Services Tax damaged the economy well before the pandemic hit us, and the prime minister’s policies during Covid have hurt it further.
Modi’s regime has presided over an alarming concentration of wealth in the hands of a few favoured capitalists on the one hand and a declining labour participation rate on the other. The stigmatisation of Muslims, energetically approved of by several senior...
READ ON APP