What this blog sets out to achieve, therefore, is an expansion of this range through a thorough examination of the English opinion pages. The examination will try and question the unstated assumptions and presuppositions of our columnists in an attempt to introduce a little diversity into what has become a baleful monoculture.
I'm sure this will be a useful exercise for myself, and I hope that it might be for others. I haven't plunged into the Indian political blog scene as yet, so there's a serious danger of reinventing the wheel here, but we are supposedly the land of self-reliance. Please feel free to use this space to rant about the state of Indian political commentary and provide some yourself.
Dear Express,
Pratap Bhanu Mehta has raised the level of the present debate by bemoaning the level to which our polity has sunk. But he has left out two critical aspects. The first is the deal itself: it represents a secular expression of the rightward shift in the polity achieved by the BJP. The deal gives the "good guys" a chance to be nuclear nationalists; even its opponents on the Left crow on about "strategic interests." That the baseline common sense in the polity is that we must have nuclear weapons---that there is no room in the mainstream for a reasoned non-proliferation position that embraces a civilian nuclear program---represents a dangerous narrowing of democratic debate.
Secondly, the venality of the SP---which Mr. Mehta rightly sees as inevitably infecting the government and the PM---is merely the front-end of the forceful corporate incursion into the formal polity. This is where the real money in politics comes from, as we all know. Money in politics is not merely a matter of morality; it simply undermines the principle of one-person-one-vote, the very soul of democracy. Certain sections might celebrate the shareholder-democracy that formal lobbying, US-style, promises, but this is no less corruption. The breaching of the divide between editorial content and advertising in our media---especially its electronic version---is another symptom of this money creep.
Disintegration is indeed in the air, but from dinosaur Left to robber-baron Right, all members of the polity are playing their part in it.
Best,
XXXXXXXX
Pratap Bhanu Mehta has raised the level of the present debate by bemoaning the level to which our polity has sunk. But he has left out two critical aspects. The first is the deal itself: it represents a secular expression of the rightward shift in the polity achieved by the BJP. The deal gives the "good guys" a chance to be nuclear nationalists; even its opponents on the Left crow on about "strategic interests." That the baseline common sense in the polity is that we must have nuclear weapons---that there is no room in the mainstream for a reasoned non-proliferation position that embraces a civilian nuclear program---represents a dangerous narrowing of democratic debate.
Secondly, the venality of the SP---which Mr. Mehta rightly sees as inevitably infecting the government and the PM---is merely the front-end of the forceful corporate incursion into the formal polity. This is where the real money in politics comes from, as we all know. Money in politics is not merely a matter of morality; it simply undermines the principle of one-person-one-vote, the very soul of democracy. Certain sections might celebrate the shareholder-democracy that formal lobbying, US-style, promises, but this is no less corruption. The breaching of the divide between editorial content and advertising in our media---especially its electronic version---is another symptom of this money creep.
Disintegration is indeed in the air, but from dinosaur Left to robber-baron Right, all members of the polity are playing their part in it.
Best,
XXXXXXXX
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