A thread of 20 tweets, on what I see ahead in India. Click below to read the rest.
India: A Forecast š§µ
ā Namit Arora (@NamitArora0) May 3, 2022
India is on a sinister path, much darker than most worried citizens foresaw in 2014. Things have gone downhill rather fast. So what do I see as the near-term outlook (5ā7 years) for India? I offer my provisional thoughts in this thread. Hope Iām wrong. (1/20)
Below are all the tweets in the thread:
- India: A Forecast š§µ
India is on a sinister path, much darker than most worried citizens foresaw in 2014. Things have gone downhill rather fast. So what do I see as the near-term outlook (5ā7 years) for India? I offer my provisional thoughts in this thread. Hope Iām wrong. (1/20) - I see a bleak economy. Its key features: anemic growth, rising deficits, falling rupee; crony-corporation-led model of growth; chronic joblessness & under-employment; auctioning of the public sector; shortage of skills despite paper degrees; growing inequality. (2/20)
- The economy is being run by unqualified hacks high on simplistic āprivatizationā, amid stifling authoritarian command, mixing the worst impulses of technocrats & nationalists. I see a demographic time bomb (not dividend), with skewed sex ratio & few females in labor force. (3/20)
- To mitigate electoral blowback, weāll see more populist welfare/handouts, sold as largesse of Party honcho. The Party will also keep redirecting public concern by intensifying sectarian strife through fear of Muslims, Hindu pride, mythic national glory, Pak-bashing, etc. (4/20)
- Indeed, weāll see aggressive, Hindutva-led polarization and fascist mobilizing against Muslims and āanti-nationalsā in up to a dozen states. Itāll turn on endlessly manufactured issues, of the sort weāre seeing, to cynically incite and keep the communal strife simmering: (5/20)
- Hijab in schools; azaan from mosques; namaz in public; halal as economic jihad; land jihad; cheering for the wrong cricketers; dietary moral policing, esp. during Hindu festivals; removing Urdu from public spaces; bogey of Muslim ghuspathiye & love jihad; etc, etc. (6/20)
- More divisive issues yet to be dreamed of will join older Hindutva agendasāled by lumpen mobs, hateful propaganda, fake news, & manufactured historical grievancesāmany of them brewing for a century, first inspired by racist European ethno-nationalisms. (7/20)
- The police, working with Hindu mobs & militias wielding pistols, trishuls, and JSRs, will produce more oppressive, one-sided police action against Muslims; more UAPA incarcerations, with colluding/ spineless courts, where most law professionals have already gone saffron. (8/20)
- Socio-economic boycott of Muslims will escalate, as will open apartheid in housing/ rentals/ jobs. Most Hindusāthough opposed by a notable minority among themāwill happily or silently support the marginalization of Muslims & jailing of critics without trial. (9/20)
- Hindutva may downplay caste divisions, but its model of Hindu unity relies on weaponizing Hindus against Muslims, and turning India into a cauldron of religious hate. Itās also distracting from, and successfully overshadowing, peopleās economic/ aspirational grievances. (10/20)
- How long will NRIsāin western, plural, liberal democraciesāfail to see through the false facade of his oratory & remain hypocritically supportive of his brutal regime thatās systematically gutting democracy & rule-of-law? He personifies āmuh mein ram, bagal mein ...ā (11/20)
- Recently in MP, a govt. bulldozer razed, with apparent impunity and mob support, both the shop and the home of a Muslim man who dared to enter into a relationship of mutual love with a Hindu woman. No blowback or recompense. This is who we have become. (12/20)
- Weāll see more Hindu mobsāchauvinists, dolts, bullies, fanatics, fascistsāarmed with pistols & trishuls, high on violent millenarianism and muscular Hindu pride and domination. They are now even indulging in ācompensatoryā desecrations of mosques/ dargahs. (13/20)
- Weāll see more rabid dharam sansads; our media channels are already not much behind the caliber of RTLM radio of ā93āā94 Rwanda. These divisive forces may well crack, burn, & wreck Indiaāmaking it a future case study of how societies go terribly wrong. (14/20)
- Weāll see Muslims forced further into ghettos, poverty & civic exclusion; theyāll face more frequent arson, violent vigilante ājusticeā, deadly communal riots and pogroms (some urban quarters/addresses are already being marked & mapped out, as if with yellow stars). (15/20)
- Muslims will be provoked into response, escalating the conflict. Weāll see attacks on the few to instill fear in the many; persecution of āfifth column traitorsā / āurban naxalsā by organs of state, via tax raids or prison, with most victims forgotten amid mounting tragedies. (16/20)
- The moral degradation of the much-vaunted āspiritual/dharmic Hindusāālong politically immature, gullible, illiberal, mired in inferiority complexesāis turning out to be an amazingly low-friction affair, at least for the clear and growing majority of them, esp. UCs. (17/20)
- Climate change will only make things harder: More crop failures, extreme weather events, internal mass migrations => xenophobic politics. More ecological distress, air pollution, water woes. With heat waves, āwet-bulb temperatureā will rudely enter public awareness. (18/20)
- A new reality dawns, in which the barbarians arenāt at the gates but are emerging vertically, as if from the trapdoors, all around us in our streets, homes, offices. This is the time to take stock, regroup & prepare for a whole new battle for the soul of our society. (19/20)
- Hope lies in movements that resist this fascist turn. Think anti-CAA protests, the farmerās movement. āš¼ Political opposition needs to get its act together fast. World needs to wake up to this far more debilitating virusāa social virusāthatās ravaging India. (20/20)
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