The Big Story: Exeunt Right
The United Kingdom votes on Thursday over whether it should leave the European Union, an eventuality that has come to be known as the Brexit. A decision to exit the EU would be momentous. It would call into question the very nature of the European project – so successful in improving relations that it won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2012 – while forcing the UK to prove that its diminished stature in the 21st century can be reversed by going it alone. Any decision to stay, the status quo, would leave British citizens with the bitter aftertaste of a nasty campaign, built on the back of hate-mongering and spurious claims.
And it has been nasty. The Leave campaign in particular has vilified immigrants, playing with parochial passions in a manner that could have ugly spillover. It got so ugly, British Member of Parliament Jo Cox was murdered last week by a man who reportedly shouted "Britain first!" The Remain campaign, meanwhile, has chosen to dismiss the economic insecurity and cultural undercurrents that inspired so much British euroskepticism in the first place. The fear is that the referendum will not be the final word on the matter, just the beginning of a larger debate.
India had its own Brexit debate seven decades ago, and the culmination of that movement was violence on a horrifically massive scale. The country has still not come to terms with the Partition that came along with the colonial withdrawal. Nation-wide parochial politics, far from subsiding, have only grown stronger in recent times.
Ministers and influential leaders known to be close to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party have made it clear that they don't see minorities, particularly Muslims, as natural citizens of India and would prefer that they "go to Pakistan".
The current dispensation has constantly toyed with the dangerous question of who is really Indian: Hindi speaking? Beef eating? Bhagwan worshipping? Bharat Mata ki Jai proclaiming? In some ways, Indian politics has always featured the parochial nastiness that has come to fore in the Brexit debate – and the upcoming Uttar Pradesh elections will only make this more apparent.
As Pratap Bhanu Mehta points out in the Indian Express on Thursday, when we allow the debate to become about who deserves to be here, we bury the much more important question: Why is our society still so unequal?
The Big Scroll
As Britain votes to leave or remain in the EU, here’s how Brexit could affect India. What will happen on June 24 if the UK votes for Brexit? "It's not Brexit but Bratus Quo": Watch John Oliver hilariously take on the UK's "leave-EU" brigade. Which Brexit forecast should you trust the most? An economist explains.
Political Picks
1. Senior Bahujan Samaj Party leader Swami Prasad Maurya quit the party on Wednesday, accusing chief Mayawati of selling tickets. The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister responded by saying Maurya had been demanding seats for his family members.
2. Unlike during the anti-Raghuram Rajan campaign, this time Finance Minister Arun Jaitley spoke up almost immediately in defence of Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian, after BJP leader Subramanian Swamy called for him to be sacked.
3. The Tamil Nadu government introduced a bill to end the direct election of mayors in the state, instead proposing that municipal councillors should elect mayors.
4. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping today with hopes that he might convince Beijing to support India's bid to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group.
Punditry
1. Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian and Rashmi Verma in the Indian Express on why the government's efforts to boost the textile industry are well-timed.
2. Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan on how bad loans come to be.
3. In UP, almost all parties have conspired to put a lid on the politics of inequality within the state, writes Pratap Bhanu Mehta in the Indian Express.
Don't Miss
Rajesh Tahil writes about how All India Radio lost its way on its 80-year journey.
"One of AIR’s biggest failings was its inability to attract those who have a choice – the urban listener. It should worry a media network when its most impressive statistics are built on the backs of those who listen because they have no choice.
As television arrived in India in the 1980s and grew rapidly in the early 1990s, AIR fiddled with the DD Metro-inspired sponsored-programme formats for its metro stations instead of having a clear offering for urban listeners. Yet, it never quite decided whether it wanted to offer unique and differentiated radio using its humongous budgets or play hit film songs in order to sell toothpaste."
