The title read “India’s problems were always bigger than Narendra Modi” (8th December, 2019 on Yahoo! News)the author, someone I respected, as I did the publication, and the people he wrote for (Bloomberg News) but the web publishers, not so much! After all, Yahoo! News was not the last bastion of unbiased opinions! But, reading the title, I said to myself, this guy might be the one to give India’s perspective to the Yahoo! fans! Alas, that was not to be! Whether it was edited to suit Yahoo! following, or not, the fact remains the author either misread the intent of many of Modi’s moves or, worse, misrepresented them!
What I don’t get is the way people, Indian people to boot, interpret many of the moves made by the non-leftist governments! If the same moves had been made by the previous government, the title would have probably read “MMS up to the task in handling reforms” but, MMS is out, as is his political master, the INC. He never made any of the daring moves that have been made by the current government! Deal with it!! The psyche of many writers baffles me! Is it because the readers belong to many different political beliefs and catering to the “populist” culture is the “in” thing to do, or is it the writer’s bent of mind, that persuades them to write what they interpret as the “absolute truth”?
The Absolute Truth. Who really knows it? Definitely, not me! I suspect, neither does Pankaj Mishra, the author of this article. The person that would probably have known, the late Mr Arun Jaitley, is no more! And so, we have to read what we would like to, out of each of these moves that Pankaj has written about! Like the demonetization that he calls “Quixotic”. If only he had done a little more research into this, he’d have found that demo helped the country take a parallel economy, that was thriving, out of the equation.
As I have mentioned previously, in one of my articles, the results of demonetization were not ONLY the return of black money, but also the ability to identify those that turned in “old” money in exchange for “new” money! This also gave the tax collectors the ability to identify any nefarious activities. A little research, in the form of asking an economist friend, gave this novice the answer! It would be difficult for me to believe, that Bloomberg, a financial giant, wouldn’t have done their homework! This leads me to believe, and I maybe wrong, that the author deliberately misrepresented the truth!
So, I ask my question again. In a different vein: Are Indians the worst enemies of an India, that is knocking on the doors of the world economy? Unfortunately, the answer is Yes, in this author’s estimation! I hope I’m wrong but am not hopeful. What do you think?
