The Big Story: Partisan problems

President Pranab Mukherjee in his New Year address to Governors and Lieutenant Governors on Thursday said that the government’s currency exchange measure would also impact India’s economic growth. “Demonetisation, while immobilising black money and fighting corruption, may lead to temporary slowdown of the economy,” Mukherjee said. “We all will have to be extra careful to alleviate the suffering of the poor which might become unavoidable for the expected progress in the long term.”

On this point, he also brought up Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s New Year’s eve address to the nation, in which he announced a number of schemes aimed at improving welfare for the poor. “While I appreciate the thrust on transition from entitlement approach to an entrepreneurial one for poverty alleviation, I am not too sure that the poor can wait that long,” Mukherjee said.

It’s important to pay attention to the President’s words, in part because of how partisan opinions on the demonetisation effort have become – a trend that it likely to deepen the closer we get to state elections starting next month. The ruling Bharatiya Janta Party has sought to portray anyone complaining about the move as a hoarder of black money, even attempting to suggest that the use of cash itself is a corrupt practice.

The Opposition, meanwhile, has failed to understand the public support for demontisation, and is doing an even worse job of communicating the distress that the currency shock has forced upon people, particularly outside cities.

Into this void, the ostensibly apolitical Mukherjee has stepped, telling the governors and lieutenant governors – effectively the representatives of New Delhi in the various states – that the poor need succour “here and now”. Modi’s New Year welfare packages might help to an extent, but a currency shock of this magnititude with the potential to rock all of India’s economy will need much more hand-holding. As Modi’s administration prepares the annual budget, it would do well to listen to the president’s concerns.

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Punditry

  1. Milan Vaishnav in the Indian Express says Prime Minister Narendra Modi must use his political capital to end the loopholes in political finance if he is serious about tackling corruption.
  2. A leader in Mint points to the deep roots of wrestling in India and says more support from private and public sources plus a mindset change could lead to much more growth.
  3. “The Supreme Court verdict on electoral malpractice ensures that future legal challenges to election victories based on identity politics will walk the fine line of text, context and subtext,” writes Sanjay Hegde in The Hindu.
  4. Rajesh M Kayal in the Indian Express says the horrible implementation of demonetisation is not because of an incorrect decision by Modi. Instead, “it is us, the people as a whole, who are more responsible”.
  5. “The erasure of Islam from Rumi’s poetry started long before Coldplay got involved,” writes Rozina Ali in the New Yorker.

Giggles

Don’t miss

Shreya Ila Anasuya writes of how only celebrating the exceptional achievements of trans-people might end up concealing their continued struggle.

“Earlier in the year, the mysterious death by immolation of a trans-woman named Tara in Chennai, proved how callous the state continues to be, when investigating violence against members of the community. While the officers who had first picked up Tara (allegedly investigating her for soliciting sex) claimed that she had committed suicide outside the police station, they refuse to furnish any evidence to back this claim, or explain how she accessed the petrol to set herself alight.

...

Tara’s death became a focal point for protests against the brutality that trans-people are routinely subjected to. At the vigils held at Jantar Mantar in Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, more stories of violence against transpeople were revealed. A homeless transwoman in Hyderabad was found murdered on the street. But, instead of investigating the murder, community members reported that the Hyderabad police harassed a group of transgender women that lived some distance away from the murdered transwoman, constantly asking for documents and treating them like suspects. In Bengaluru, a transwoman was found dead on the street. The cause of her death remains unknown.”