Sunday View: The Best Weekend Opinion Reads, Curated Just For You

We sifted through the papers to find the best opinion reads, so you won't have to.

The Chink in Modi’s Armour

Tavleen Singh writes in her column in The Indian Express that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has "failed to project himself as someone who truly understands that pluralism is the glue that has held India together through some very bad times."

She further argues that if Rahul Gandhi's 'Bharat Jodo' padyatra somehow becomes a way of convincing Indians that only the Congress party represents the pluralism that Indian democracy needs to survive, "then it will have achieved more than any other attempt at revival or reinvention of the party of our freedom movement."

"The sad truth is Sonia and her children have been so arrogantly certain of the ‘charisma’ of the family name that they have done little other than wait for Modi to fail. This failure is not imminent. As we saw last week, Modi has created an idea of India that has a new pantheon of heroes and a new narrative, but there is one essential piece missing. Pluralism."

Tavleen Singh in The Indian Express

They Love Unemployment and Inflation

Veteran Congress leader and former Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram writes in The Indian Express on why he feels there are sections of the population and parts of the government that are happy with raging unemployment and soaring inflation, and why they "will do everything that is possible, clandestinely, to keep the flags of unemployment and inflation flying high."

"Business loves unemployment. Because there are so many people chasing a small number of jobs, the bargaining power of the job-providers is high. Consequently, wages are depressed. Wage increases are paltry."

P Chidambaram in The Indian Express

Chidambaram continues, "Government recruitment bodies and public sector enterprises love unemployment. When there are thousands of applicants including graduates and post-graduates for a few hundred lower-grade vacancies, the appointing authorities acquire enormous power and discretion. Brokers flourish, money changes hands, scams occur. Because job-seekers exceed jobs, there is growing casualisation and informalisation of jobs in the private, public and government sectors. Labour welfare laws are thrown aside. The trade union movement is weakened considerably."

Figure It Out

Mukul Kesavan, in his column in The Telegraph, uses his characteristically dry humour to comment on the new Central Vista, the government's decision to rename Rajpath as Kartavya Path, and the newly unveiled statue of Subhas Chandra Bose at India Gate.

"After George V was removed and exiled to Coronation Park, there was a campaign to instal Gandhiji in the vacated canopy. After many years, a sculpture was commissioned and completed: a sitting Gandhi. It was never used because people saw the problem with installing the Mahatma under an imperial canopy. Some people thought that the vacant space was a good way of signifying the end of the raj. The BJP, which sets little store by subtlety, abhors a vacuum. Luckily for us, it filled that vacant space up with Netaji. It mistook, perhaps, Netaji’s instrumental use of the Axis powers for Golwalkar’s ideological affinity with fascism. Now it’s stuck with a secular colossus overseeing Modi’s Kartavya Path."

Mukul Kesavan in The Telegraph

Can India Become an Indian Ocean Power?

Congress leader Manish Tewari writes in the Deccan Chronicle about China aggressively pushing for expansive influence globally "through both the Belt and Road initiative and a blue water navy", and on whether India is ready to counter this threat that could potentially diminish its ability to secure its strategic, economic and trade interests.

"As the Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean grows, it is bound to negatively affect India’s ability to both manoeuvre and protect its interests. It is well understood that the String of Pearls Plus and China's Belt and Road Initiative considerably heighten India’s strategic vulnerability. While the British, the Americans, and the French have multiple bases all around the world — partly the legacies of empire and partly due to the Cold War — India needs to assert its own dominance in the region through a carefully calibrated approach that takes the apprehensions of the West Indian Ocean Region countries into consideration. There has been an increase in maritime and security cooperation with the West Indian Ocean Region countries but much more needs to be done. India needs to leverage its goodwill it enjoys in these countries to enhance naval cooperation and commercial activity."

Manish Tewari in Deccan Chronicle

Queen Elizabeth II: An Exception, Not the Rule

Mihir S Sharma, fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, writes in Business Standard on the legacy of Queen Elizabeth II and argues that compared to other monarchs, she was exceptional not just in her longevity but in her careful avoidance of controversy and interference.

"Her long life saw her little island decline from ruling half the world to losing its voice even within the powerful European bloc. And yet the influence it still possesses and whatever dynamism it retains in international and economic affairs is partly because one of the legacies of its imperial past is a relative openness to capital, trade, and people. And, of course, that numinous quality we call “soft power”. Ashok Malik, a former official in the Indian foreign ministry, correctly pointed out on Twitter that the queen “both as a symbol and as an individual, helped Britain punch well above its global weight.... She epitomised soft power before we knew what the term meant”."

Mihir S Sharma in Business Standard

Trespassers Will Be Garlanded

In a column in Deccan Chronicle, author Krishna Shastri Devulapalli laments on how "today’s average Indian thinks nothing of plagiarism."

"About a decade ago, a well-known actor ugly-cried in public about how the movie they had made with much love, effort and money had been callously leaked online before its release. The film fraternity went en masse to the CM seeking justice for this heinous crime perpetrated on them. At the press conference, a superstar known for his philosophical finger-swishing delivered the ultimate punch dialogue to the TV reporters... without a hint of irony. “You know, originally, I was supposed to do this movie. The director showed me a DVD of a Korean film and said we should ‘remake’ it...” In essence, what our film fraternity was lamenting was that the material they had piously stolen for profit and glory had been dishonourably re-stolen by someone else to cut into their profit and glory. I wonder what the Korean filmmaker would have said had he been present."

Krishna Shastri Devulapalli in Deccan Chronicle

The Stark Reasons Why Bengaluru Is Sinking

T R Raghunandan, Senior Policy Adviser at the Centre for Policy Research and former Secretary of Panchayati Raj in the Karnataka government, lists the reasons behind Bengaluru sinking, in an article in The Hindu.

"As Bengaluru expanded, swallowing up the villages around it, panchayats were disbanded to create six city municipal corporations, which were merged subsequently into the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP). During this transition, land records were either destroyed or tampered with, and fake documents fabricated by corrupt interests. Lakes and their catchment areas were soon transformed into private lands. Builders backfilled these and soon made quick money building apartments, shopping malls and information-technology parks. We were arrogant in thinking that we could somehow defy nature. But water finds its own level, irrespective of whether we are rich or poor."

T R Raghunandan in The Hindu

Bilkis Bano Remission: My Personal Sense of Justice Feels Betrayed

BJP spokesperson Shazia Ilmi writes in The Indian Express on the remission of the eleven convicts in the Bilkis Bano case.

"The remission comes under the ambit of the BJP government in Gujarat but it’s also important to distinguish between the state government in Gujarat and the executive office of the Prime Minister and the distinct separateness of their jurisdictions. Let us look at the brevity of the jail time served. I am appalled that the guilty in such a heinous crime can get away with a mere 15 years. On this, there can be no two opinions."

Shazia Ilmi in The Indian Express

However, she adds, "The accusations of bias or preferential treatment are ridiculous. The government carried out no campaigns for their release unlike, say, the Tamil Nadu government in 2018, which passed Cabinet resolutions for the release of Perarivalan and others convicted in the killing of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi."

Fifty for Seventy-Five

In his column in The Telegraph, author and historian Ramachandra Guha offers a list of 50 non-fiction books that he has found useful in understanding "the complicated career of our Republic."

From books on economic policy to those on social movements, from biographies to works on social structure and social change in modern India, this is one listicle you wouldn't want to miss out on.

"On the operations of caste in the countryside, I recommend two classic ethnographies; one by an Indian, M.N. Srinivas’ The Remembered Village (1977), the other,Patronage and Exploitation (1974), by a Dutch scholar, Jan Breman. On the status and predicament of Muslims in independent India, see Mushirul Hasan, Legacy of a Divided Nation: India’s Muslims Since Independence (1997); on the status and predicament of tribals, see Nandini Sundar, editor, The Scheduled Tribes and their India (2016)."

Ramachandra Guha in The Telegraph

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