...And Then They Came for Me!

For some time now, it has been evident even to those who had reposed faith in the moderating power of prime ministership on the politics that Narendra Modi represented that there has been no such effect. The main focus of the government (much to the dismay of the cheerleading “captains of industry” as well as the aspiring middle classes) has been on what the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) calls “cultural nationalism” and what the people of India know as a violent implementation of Hindu majoritarianism.

There has been a sustained strategy to fill the governing positions of institutions with not just those aligned ideologically and politically with the government in power, which is normal practice in most democracies, but with incompetent people who will hollow out the substance of these institutions. The list of institutions targeted thus is now well known. Even institutions whose functional autonomy is crucial to the checks and balances of a parliamentary democracy have been targeted for “capture,” like with the infamous attempt to undercut the Reserve Bank of India’s autonomy through the budget proposals last March.