Political Line | Seeking votes through the gods, the lure of the gig economy, State vs State and more

Here is the latest edition of the Political Line newsletter curated by Varghese K. George

Updated - October 31, 2022 04:19 pm IST

Chief Minister of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal speaks to media during his visit to the Ghazipur landfill site in East Delhi on Thursday.

Chief Minister of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal speaks to media during his visit to the Ghazipur landfill site in East Delhi on Thursday. | Photo Credit: SHIV KUMAR PUSHPAKAR

(The Political Line newsletter is India’s political landscape explained every week by Varghese K. George, senior editor at The Hindu . You can subscribe here to get the newsletter in your inbox every Friday.)

Modi versus Kejriwal

Narendra Modi made his sixth visit to Kedarnath and second to Badrinath as Prime Minister recently. It was followed by a grand ceremony in Ayodhya on the eve of Deepavali. He celebrated Deepavali with soldiers in Kargil. Across these visits, Mr. Modi donned the caps of a warrior, a king, a pilgrim and a saint in the last one week.

“Today, Kashi, Ujjain, Ayodhya and many more spiritual centres are reclaiming their lost pride and legacy. Kedarnath, Badrinath and Hemkund Sahib are holding the faith while connecting the services with technology,” he said. “From Ram temple in Ayodhya to Maa Kalika temple in Pavagadh, Gujarat to Devi Vindhyachal Corridor, India is announcing its cultural and traditional upliftment,” he said, adding that this thrust on spiritual tourism was helping Indians break free from a colonial mindset.

Mr. Modi has designed a Hindutva model of development -- combining technological progress and spiritual pursuits in the same compact as the quote above indicates.

A generous dose of welfare measures for the disadvantaged sections of the society is part of the Modi model, but he also tries to rope them in his spirituality project too. In his Ayodhya speech, Mr. Modi underscored that the Nishadraj Park being developed in Shringverpur Dham near Prayagraj would have a statue of Lord Ram embracing Nishad Raj. The U.P. government promotes this project as a show of caste unity across ages. According to the official website of U.P. Tourism, “Ramayana mentions that Lord Rama, his brother Lakshman and consort Sita stayed for a night in the village before going to the forest on exile. It is said boatmen refused to let them cross the river. Nishadraj himself visited the site where Lord Rama was putting up to resolve the issue. He offered to give them way if Lord Rama let him wash his feet. The permission was granted and it is mentioned that Nishadraj washed the feet of Rama with the water of Ganges and drank it to show his reverence towards him.”

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo Arvind Kejriwal is trying to confront Mr. Modi on the Hindutva turf. After promising free trips to all Gujaratis, he has now offered a quick fix for all the economic problems of the country. “Efforts become fruitful when you have blessings of gods and goddesses... When you have blessings of gods and goddesses, (we) get results,” according to the AAP chief.

Mr. Modi and the BJP are also trying to distinguish their welfare schemes from that of Mr. Kejriwal and the AAP. The Election Commission of India has waded into the contest by seeking the opinion of political parties on the question of ‘freebies.’ The BJP has said freebies are meant for alluring voters while welfarism is a policy intervention for inclusive growth, in its response to the EC. This is beyond the jurisdiction of the EC, the Congress has said.

If moonlighting is bad, can gig economy be good?

Technology has made regular, full-time employment a thing of the past. The notion that there is a predictable trajectory to one’s job, which was a key component of capitalist democracy, has been decimated. In June 2022, 4.8% of employed people held a second job in the U.S., a significant increase from one year ago, even as a three quarters of middle income Americans say they don’t earn enough to meet their cost of living. In a country like India, where finding any employment is difficult, more and more people are taking up part-time gig work that requires them to work longer hours and with lesser security.

It is technological advancement that made gig work possible, and profitable for entrepreneurs. Gig working takes away the traditional security that regular employment used to provide for workers, with the promise of flexibility and higher immediate remuneration. But now, in an irony of sorts, technology companies that drive this gig work culture are aggrieved that their own staff works for other companies! Here’s an interesting explainer on the issues at stake.

Federalism Tract

Power of the lathi

CM Eknath Shinde  & Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis speaks to the media during the press conference on the eve of Monsoon Assembly Session on Tuesday.

CM Eknath Shinde & Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis speaks to the media during the press conference on the eve of Monsoon Assembly Session on Tuesday. | Photo Credit: EMMANUAL YOGINI

Policing powers remain a point of contention between the States and the Centre. The Maharashtra government led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis on October 20 reversed the erstwhile Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government’s decision of withdrawing the general consent to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to investigate cases in the State. Several States have discontinued the general consent to CBI.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, meanwhile, pushed for expanding the policing powers of the Centre. Mr. Shah said there will be offices of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in every district of the country. Mr. Shah called for centralisation of data on terror and other crimes — “one data, one entry.” Mr. Modi has called for one uniform for police forces across the country.

Power of the tongue

Speakers of Tulu and Kodava have opposed the draft of the Kannada Language Comprehensive Development Bill, 2022, which aims to ensure the “extensive use and propagation” of Kannada. They have sought that various dialects spoken within Karnataka too should get protection under the ambit of the Bill. According to the BJP’s Tamil Nadu State president, K. Annamalai, DMK politics is not about promoting Tamil but English.

This in line with the BJP claim that its language politics is not meant to undermine regional languages, but replace English with Hindi as the link language of the country.

The rivalry between the economic elites of the Gujarati and Marathi communities has been legendary and it has acquired a new edge in the recent past. Within months of losing a big-ticket project to Gujarat, Maharashtra is at the receiving end of the BJP’s promotion of the former.

The Central government announced that the ₹22,000 crore Tata-Airbus project for manufacturing military transport aircraft would now come up in Vadodara in Gujarat despite the Maharashtra government’s efforts to locate it in Nagpur. Barely a month after losing out the Vedanta-Foxconn project to neighbouring Gujarat, the Eknath Shinde-Devendra Fadnavis-led government in Maharashtra suffered this loss of face. Naturally, the Thackeray faction of the Shiv Sena, and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), are training their guns at Mr. Shinde.

 Kerala Governor takes aim at Finance Minister

Kerala Governor Arif Mohammad Khan at a function in Kochi on Saturday.

Kerala Governor Arif Mohammad Khan at a function in Kochi on Saturday. | Photo Credit: THULASI KAKKAT

From our editorial on the issue: “Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan has declared that he is withdrawing his pleasure as far as Finance Minister K.N. Balagopal is concerned. He expects constitutionally appropriate action by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. In other words, Mr. Khan wants Mr. Balagopal dismissed for remarks that he sees as seditious, undermining national unity and stoking regionalism.” Mr. Balagopal had compared the higher education system in U.P. with that of Kerala.

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