When I last wrote a blog post on India two months ago, it was about how we shouldn’t be tying up the Indian economy in knots and that we ought to be liberalising our import duty structure and implementing other reforms to incentivise investment by the private sector in new job-creating ventures. The economy is still the most important issue that should be occupying the minds of our country’s leaders, especially the creation of new and better jobs.
However, since then such a political storm has ensued that it has completely distracted the leadership and the media. Not without reason though, since several troubling incidents have taken place after the state assembly election results were announced three months ago.
First, is the political concentration of power that the BJP-led government at the centre is engaging in. By using its money and muscle power to split regional parties like the Shiv Sena and the TMC, it has gained several defections and is managing to bolster its majority in parliament. Majority that it did not win at the last Lok Sabha elections in 2024. This is in clear violation of the anti-defection laws and I wondered why nobody was raising this issue. The Tenth Schedule rule introduced in 1985 – further amended in 2003 – which says that if two-thirds of a party’s MPs switch parties, it is no longer considered a defection but a merger, is ridiculous. It is still very much defection, and en masse defection! This rule is a red herring and reveals how politicians frame laws and rules to suit themselves and protect themselves under the law.
What is happening as a result is that our regional parties are losing their relevance and heft in a parliamentary democracy, with political power getting increasingly concentrated in the ruling party. Regional parties which provided a bastion of opposition to the ruling party have suffered at the hands of BJP’s wheeling-dealing and if things are allowed to slide to a single-party rule it poses the biggest threat to our parliamentary democracy.
Second, we have the anger and frustration of India’s youth spilling on to the streets of India’s towns and cities. They are protesting precisely against a corrupt and broken education/examination system. In recent years, exam paper leaks have risen in India and this year too, the NEET exam paper was leaked, the test had to be held again, and millions of students and their families were put through untold agony, uncertainty and unnecessary trouble. None of this is being resolved through dialogue and discussion. Instead, it was sought to be controlled through use of force and every political party has tried to politicise the issue since.
The recently concluded monsoon session of Parliament was a washout – not by the monsoon, though – with the ruling party and the opposition at loggerheads. Outside we have the student protests raging, as well as a war in the Middle-east which is threatening to choke growth in many economies, including in India. I remarked in a post on LinkedIn that instead of the ugly scenes both in our Parliament and on the streets of Delhi, we should be focusing on the Indian economy and urgent attention must be paid to both the consequences of the war on oil and commodity prices, as well as the impact of a deficient monsoon as well as El Niño on food prices, food supplies as well as the lives of the poor.
The curious thing about these student protests is why they were concentrated only in Delhi, Bihar, and Jharkhand. I suspect unprofessional PR agency idiot bosses are behind the entire paper leak episode, student protests, Cockroach Janata Party, the use of force, the political logjam and the entire sordid saga. I have written before on my blog about the awful unemployment survey conducted by NSSO, where too the unprofessional PR scoundrel bosses have been meddling, and where also there was a link between Delhi and Jharkhand! These so-called bosses are capable of engineering the worst kinds of disasters and fiascos – including the Air India crash, I am sorry to say – to suit their hidden and toxic agenda.
The worst part is that they are doing this in collusion with the government and cosying up to politicians to further their plan and conspiracy, which is entirely to do with wrecking my career and life and also trying to hijack all of it. They have engaged in egregious offences one after another for decades and the worst kinds of media and policy hijack in the country and are trying the same overseas! These are not people who ought to even be in the corporate world, and in fact, ought to be barred from ever doing business.
Returning to the economy, the government’s focus ought to be on managing adequate energy supplies, keeping inflation under control, managing agricultural supplies in the face of El Niño as well as job creation. Not only are we affected by the Iran war, we are yet to sign the much talked about trade deal with the US. Besides, we now also have the new 100% tariff to be concerned about, that the US intends to impose on countries importing Russian oil. Firms too need to focus on diversifying their supply chains, keeping costs under control, raising prices moderately where necessary and on increasing investment and job creation.
As far as student protests are concerned, the government perhaps ought to discuss the broken state of our higher education examination system with leaders of other political parties in a committee and take necessary and swift action. They must also stay in constant dialogue with student protest leaders until the issue is resolved to their satisfaction. And I don’t mean only on Instagram reels and on social media! I find something terribly strange about the National Testing Agency and other such bodies conducting various exams and this requires serious attention as well.
The whole thing is a PR agency-engineered circus and they have managed to turn the country, government and businesses into a circus just like themselves and the unprofessional PR agency that they run.
The animated owl gif that forms the featured image and title of the Owleye column is by animatedimages.org and I am thankful to them.
Peripatetic Perch 