Some things to Reconsider

Come October, India enters what I call the “Republic of Outrage.” The so-called festival season now comes with its own ritual choreography — not of lights, but of hashtags. First, the annual denunciation of Gandhi: a flurry of posts calling him the “great appeaser,” followed by that curious sect of Godse devotees who believe the man with the pistol was history’s most misunderstood patriot. And then, inevitably, comes the annual symphony on fireworks — the claim that bursting crackers is a time-honoured Hindu tradition. Celebrities, industrialists, and TV anchors join in with missionary zeal. Some sing solo, others harmonise, but they all hum the same tune. From television studios to X (that glorious temple of half-truths), the chorus swells. Sudhir Chaudhary, our national priest of prime-time patriotism, warns solemnly that “banning crackers is an attack on faith.” Former Infosys CFO Mohandas Pai logs on to declare that “pollution isn’t caused by crackers,” and that restrictions are...

Who would have imagined that in India, the land of Gandhi ji’s simplest ideals, we would be witnessing a growth story so split that it resembles not a straight line rising but a sharply diverging “K”? One arm rockets upward, glittering with corporate gains and luxury whispers, while the other—silent, struggling—slides downward, borne by millions of workers, farmers, women in villages, and small shopkeepers. How ironic: the nation that owes its survival to unity now splinters economically into two disparate realities. It was in this context that political strategist Prashant Kishor, in a recent interview, made a striking remark. He declared his opposition to the Prime Minister’s promise of two new Amrit Bharat trains originating from Bihar. According to him, these trains were not designed to ease the lives of ordinary Biharis but to “facilitate the outward migration of inexpensive labour.” His observation is not merely cynical commentary; it points to a deeper malaise in the way India...

  The transformation of the Indian state under Narendra Modi has often been narrated in terms of strong leadership, decisive governance, and an unrelenting emphasis on development. Development being a synonym for civil engineering projects, showcased in glossy WhatsApp forwards and jarring emotional endorsements by nobodies. Yet what has emerged over the past decade is less a model of sustainable development than what can be described as the “Contractor State”: a polity where monumental construction projects, executed with little public scrutiny, have replaced democratic debate as the primary mode of statecraft. In Modi’s vision, the nation’s destiny is equated with the building of imposing physical structures, even as institutional and ecological foundations are steadily weakened. The Central Vista redevelopment project and the construction of a new Parliament epitomize this logic. The official justification—that the old Parliament was structurally inadequate and technologica...