LoP RaGa's speech on Budget 2024

Most of my points are based on this video.

I found it amusing and confusing and weird that at the beginning of the speech, RaGa made an MP get his water and glass. I am sure they are friends. But felt weird. 

He started right from where he left off last time. Shiv Ji. "Dar mat, Darao mat", ahinsa, etc.

He accused that in a lot of things, the government is creating these "Padmavyuh" and trapping people. Just like how 6 people (Drona, Aswatthaama, Sakuni, Duryodhana, and Karna) were the orchestrators of the "Padmavyuh" in Mahabharatha, six people orchestrated these Padmavyuhas on the people of India. 

Just a slight aside, the speaker is so one-sided. Eventhough the ruling party is making noise first, he chastised the opposition ministers. He said, "if you do this running commentary, then they (the ruling party MPs) will also do the same. The same person didn't say a thing when the prime minister was calling the LoP "balak buddhi". This is an open secret that since the speaker is a member of the ruling party, he'd obviously be impartial. Then, a ruling party MP cried foul saying that LoP has talked back against everybody, the speaker, the prime minister, and the "constitution". This is such a laughable comeback but well, what can you expect from the party who has been a bully and suddenly is being ridiculed by the very person they bullied for 10 years. Btw, the PM was not present in the speech. RaGa alluded to the ruling party that "don't worry, he won't be here whenever I speak". We will see if that holds. 

I also want to make a small note about the FM. Her smug laugh in the face of tax burden on the middle class is so agitating to watch. FM has perfected the ducking of the questions on the budget and side-lining the main issue. An example was this video, where the reporter asked the FM two questions: (1) Is the 15000 crores allocated to Amaravati (the capital of Andhra) a loan or is it covered by the government? (2) Are you gonna take incharge of Polavaram? Obviously centre doesn't want anything to do with either of them but they are stuck with CBN. The second questions is the lesser devil so she expertly answered that first. FM said, rather vaguely, whatever was agreed before the centre will take care. Wow, such a committed answer. Then, while answering the first question she resorted to non-denial denial type answer. The less I talk about it, the better. Watch the video and find out for yourself. 

Then, RaGa talked how the government is isolating the middle class, the farmers, the dalits, the aadivaasis, the backward classes. He alluded that it is in a way good for INDIA bloc as all of them will now turn to them. He accused that they constitute 90% of the Indian populace but the remaining 10% is allocating the budget among themselves while the rest 90% is starving.The main talking points of his speech are as follows: 

• They will allocate MSP for the farmers properly. 
• They will do the caste and economic census, which he said the government is afraid to do. 
• They will reinstate the MNREGA scheme, which provides employment to the rural communities. 
• They will reinstate indexation on the property sales.  

He ended by saying that INDIA bloc will pass all these laws in this parliament and ended with a Jai Hind. 

Indian Budget 2024

The general consensus is that this budget imposes a heavy burden on middle- to lower-middle-class families. I will share more excerpts from the Budget as I read it, but the major issues concerning the middle class seem to be as follows: 

1. They removed the indexation on the property tax. This means that inflation is not considered when calculating the tax that should be paid to the government when you sell your property. 

2. The long-term capital gains are taxed even further. This would surely hurt the investments and stock market as newcomers are more likely to not come due to the excessive taxation. 

3. Minister Raghav Chaddha argued in the parliament that Indian govt taxes like western countries and provides infrastructure like sub-saharan countries. 

4. Unemployment was one of the highly cited reason for the low vote turnout for the ruling party and they seem to have taken some steps. Many sectors are incentivized to hire freshers with low taxes. There is a peculiar provision where the fresh hire would get one month's salary as a bonus. I don't know what this achieves but good for them. 

5. I would like to see "all the black money" collected during note ban put to some use to improve the infrastructure in the country. 

6. It looks like most funds went to Bihar for reconstruction. Andhra was made some random promises to get 15000 crores for constructing the capital but with T & C. Nobody knows what those are. More drama to unfold here. See Shashi Tharoor's speech in Parliament on Budget 2024.. 

7. Several states, including West Bengal and Tamil Nadu accused that no funds were allocated to those states on account of BJP not being elected from there. See Shashi Tharoor's speech here.

There are two main themes that I perceive from this. Try to follow my logic. The ruling party obviously doesn't want India to develop. Prosperity reduces conflict. Then you can't anger voters based on "mutton" and "mangal sutra", am I right? 

The news media doesn't ask any questions. The few print media that ask fall on deaf ears. The finance minister is acting so smug to be honest. This was also demonstrated when an audience member asked them about why there is GST and SGST and an additional capital gains tax on the investment. What are we earning then? Here's a link to that video. 

The (possibly) declining right wing politics

With the recent general elections in India serving a sour punch in a silver platter to the ruling party, which saw a reduction in its majority of 303/545 to 240/545, a curious thought crossed my mind. These days, political parties that espouse right-wing politics often tend to have dictatorial tendencies (e.g., making draconian laws that curb free speech, elimination of government oversight, consolidation of the news and print media) all of which were seen in India for the past couple of years. During elections, there was even talk that by gaining a 400+ majority, they will rewrite the constitution, which in all seriousness would have eroded fundamental rights of minorities and may have made India a one-party state similar to Russia. What happened? 

The people rejected the incumbency in a spectacular manner. Similar things are happening around the world. In the last week, France rejected their ultra right wing party uprising. UK too put brakes on 14 years of (recently tumultous) conservative rule that ended up with Brexit.

Let's have some comparisons. Like the US, France is a presidential democracy, whereas like UK, India is a parliamentary democracy. However, the way the French elections are setup is slightly complicated as explained in this video. In brief, it is a two-stage system: First stage is like a knockout round where only the parties that gain over 12.5% of the vote share move to the next round. The party that wins the majority in this round, becomes the ruling party. This is in stark contrast with the US elections where there are only two competing parties. So, the right wing leader Le Penn rose in popularity recently and everybody thought they are gonna win the primaries. While she went through in the first round with a majority, the consolidation of the liberal left and centrist vote made sure that democracy prevailed another day. 

In UK as well, conservative leader of Indian origin Rishi Sunak (to be fair, the conservative party) saw an unprecedented defeat in the hands of  the Labor party. Love's Labour's not lost ;). Although, I felt that the UK politicians handled the success and defeat in a more civilized manner. Can't believe I am saying this, but all the world leaders could take a page out of this book on civilized political discourse. 

What's best. the INC sweeped the bypolls that happened in 7 states. While this is not a clear indicator of the political winds in India, it is evident that people are becoming more and more aware of the current state of the Indian polity and are voting accordingly, as much as 'Godi' media is trying to ostensibly side track the real issues, such as economy, unemployment, Manipur civil war, NEET paper leak, Electoral bonds, and Delhi CM arrest. 

In an almost dramatic manner, there was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump yesterday. The killer was shot and killed by the secret service. Unfortunately, an innocent civilian was killed too and several are being reported to be injured. Violence is never the answer. Sadly, even this wouldn't bring reasonable gun reforms in USA. I saw several tweets on twitter asking if Republicans would now support a gun reform lol. Most likely not lol.

Fin.    

What is happening with NEET?

 I gave my IIT-JEE exam in 2013. There were certain nuances which I won't mention here, such as the change in format of the exam, to happen in two stages instead of one. The amount of physical and mental toll it takes on an above average non-prodigy middle class student like me cannot be explained in words. While I was relieved after the exam as I did reasonably well, the two years of intense study leading up to it sort of changed me. I had no social life, no real friends just colleagues who I have shared trauma with, and no shared memories during that time. I don't think I could go through that time again. Even today, sometimes, I wake up in sweats in the middle of the night thinking of how I missed the exam date or how I interchanged the two exams and any other fail-proof scenarios my sweet brain could conjure up. So, believe me, when I say, I know what the prospect of a paper-leak or a cancelled exam feels like. 

Let me make my position absolutely clear. I am not blindly supporting the so-called RE-NEET neither am I against conducting the NEET again if that means everyone gets a fair chance. Maybe, there should be an averaging of scores from the first and the second test. I don't know the clear answer. 

BUT, the NTA (National Testing Agency) and the Indian government are clearly at fault here. I have been watching a lot of videos on what the political vibe is among the nation's youth and it seems like an overwhelming majority is unhappy of the fact that almost every exam has been subjected to said "leaks", which was shocking to say the least. So, this is not an isolated happening. Yet, the Solicitor General and the NTA rather misleadingly presented that it is so in the Supreme Court (SC). SC in response, said that, "there is no question that the leak has happened". 

What is the current state as of July 10, 2024? 

The SC has currently directed the NTA to provide the entire test data in an Excel sheet so that the attorney general of the People could try and use "data science" on the data to point out irregularities so that they can provide a more informed arguments in the court. Subject to correction, it looks like NTA has provided an interface where someone could collect data one student at a time but not as a batch query. Goes out to say that they would use any dirty trick available to them to evade justice. The quorum on this isn't settled yet and we might have to see how this plays out in the next court hearing. 

The SC further said that, while there is no question that the leak happened, the "blast radius" of the leak has to be determined. Only then, can they provide ruling on whether the NEET would be cancelled entirely or only in certain affected areas.

I wish all the medical students stay strong. If you have put in the hard work, you will persevere and you will get through this. This too shall pass! :) 

This week in Indian politics

On the verge of the 2014 elections, I was a nascent undergrad, who rarely cared about politics. Even still I understood the importance of the BJP coming to power, defeating the incumbent UPA government (United Progressive Alliance) led by Sonia Gandhi, I mean Man Mohan Singh. To be honest, Indians were fed up with corruption and scams that robbed the economy of thousands of crores, and the thunderous silence of the then 'silent, accidental' prime minister. To be honest, MM Singh was an able administrator. He was the tour de force behind India's economic reforms and good relations with the US government. In many ways, the INC was seen as an oligarchy rather than a democratic party where the top few controlled the entire party's policies. All of these contributed to the party's debilitating defeat in 2014. On the other hand, we have a prime minister, who was once a chai-walla (a tea-selling person), almost in forced similarity with Abraham Lincoln, who is the figurehead of a cobbler-turned-president to most Indians. The underlying histories are debatable but the idea is that the masses love a leader from humble origins as they identify themselves with them.  

While all seemed well, it all started to become clear in less than two years. There was a rise in the lynchings of people of particular religions. There were attempts to rewrite Indian history. The press started to sing praises of the ruling party, especially its leader. The debates were so one-sided that the representative from the ruling party didn't even have to talk. 

Nobody, least of all BJP expected it. In the 2024 elections, the people of India gave a resounding mandate to the ruling BJP party that they are tired of Hindutva politics and vote-mongering in the name of religion. Unemployment and the economy were the two main issues people voted for. I will briefly overview the main reasons behind this mandate. 

Rahul Gandhi was often and relentlessly mocked by the BJP and the so-called 'Godi' media as 'Pappu', meaning that he is incapable, inept, and unskillful. Despite this barrage of attacks on him, he took on the 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' (Join India Tour), in which he toured the entire country from North to South and from East to West. While he was defeated by Amethi in the previous elections by Smriti Irani, he contested this time from Wayanad in Kerala and Rai Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh and won both seats with a majority of almost 4 lakh votes. In contrast PM Modi barely won in his constituency by only 80k votes. While we cannot compare the vote majority share in two constituencies, given that the constituency was considered to be a stranglehold for Hindutva politics is a cause for concern for the ruling party. 

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Cut to the present

The opposition gave fiery speeches in the parliament primarily bashing the consolidation of power over executive bodies such as CBI, ED, and judiciary, the capture of the election commission (EC), the NEET exam crisis, the incendiary remarks made by the prime minister against a religious minority, the center's handling of the Manipur's civil war, among others. Here, I will briefly talk about two speeches from the opposition that I found to be impressive.

The first was by the Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi (RaGa). Previously, the notion of Hindutva has been drummed up by the ruling party extracting little to no resistance from the opposition possibly from the fear of losing the Hindu vote. However, in this parliament session, it looks like Congress decided to take the narrative into their own hands. In this speech, RaGa differentiated Hindus from Hindutva, saying that Shiv Ji and all other religions preach nonviolence, tolerance, and empathy, whereas the ruling party only prescribed violence. A recurring theme of his speech was 'Daro mat, Darao mat'. I must say this is a new RaGa that India is witnessing. Trying to twist this speech into Hindu hatred, the ruling party failed badly and played right into Congress's hands. Note that in the past they played a similar gimmick that required RaGa to apologize to Hindus in Kerala. This is definitely a moral victory. He also brought up the matter of the BJP losing in Ayodhya and said that they ignored the poor and therefore paid the price. 

Another interesting speech was from the Tamil Nadu MP, A. Raja's speech on the president's remarks. The interesting point of his speech was that of the 'caste census' which was also brought up by RaGa in his rallies. And he mentioned that the caste system was created for the "division of labour", but it turned into a "division of labourers" and that a caste census is the only way to ensure social justice. I found the idea of a caste census intriguing. Although, at first, I thought this could be discriminatory to the downtrodden people. It looks like identifying the lower-income clusters and the factors that influence people to stay in poverty is the way to ensure social justice and an overwhelming majority of respected journalists and social workers seem to agree on this. 

I might write up a specific blog post for caste-based census and will provide more references if I can! Until next time!

Who am I?

I am a political enthusiast, if you will. I believe in moderation, tolerance, secularism, and all the other democratic principles. I think 'change' in democracy is slow but will always be for the better. It is self-correcting. I believe in free speech and freedom of the press. I am a dilettante in contemporary geo- socio-politics and anthropology. I believe in Science, education, literacy, and universal healthcare. In many ways, I am a socialist--this has come to become such a pejorative term in the present day. This just means that everybody should be able to afford basic human needs; I am not talking about redistribution of wealth here!

PS: I am a PhD student and hence have a very limited time to keep this blog up. So often, my writing is coarse and possibly not as frequent.