Thread by @70sBachchan

One Nation, One Religion, One People, One Language...Ein Grid? #Budget2019
BJP goes all in on infrastructure 'connectivity'. Cronies line up to kiss the one ring to rule them all. And in the darkness bind them.

https://twitter.com/FinancialXpress/status/1147019811886469120

Pre election, Modi govt's budget was entirely about sops to farmers & the poor. After election, its focus returns to its constituents: Finance & Infrastructure. #Budget2019 ndtv.com/opinion/whats-… ht @mihirssharma

https://twitter.com/70sBachchan/status/1130642162029346818

Infusion of capital into stressed public sector banks is good news. But chucking more Infra loans at Cronies continues cycle of 'jobless growth'. Simmering youth unemployment could turn into a volcano. #Budget2019

https://twitter.com/70sBachchan/status/1121855723749740549

India's #Budget2019 Transport policies are Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde for CO2
Boost Flying (cut jet fuel tax & build more airports);
Boost EV's (tax credits for loans & ↑ import tariffs on oil);
Boost Trains (invstmt & move freight on water) @robbie_andrew epw.in/engage/article…

Plenty of similarities bw Trump & Modi's rightwing nationalism. But the differences matter.
Trump is a paper tiger whose project is actively resisted by US courts, congress, corporates, civil society. Modi's 'Hindu India' project isn't.

https://twitter.com/70sBachchan/status/1147745211721928704

Dangling jobs-heavy infra & promising to write-off stressed loans of cronies was one plank of BJP's strategy. Willingness to orchestrate violence against muslims just before elections — pogroms in Babri, Bombay & Gujarat — was another. ht Rana Ayyub newyorker.com/magazine/2019/…

A black day for Indian democracy #CitizenshipBill. What is no longer hidden within India is 𝘏𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯. 2014 was the 'coming of age of the Hindu state'; 2019 is its consummation. ht @policytensor prophetic review of Perry Anderson's Indian ideology policytensor.com/2014/03/21/the…

Student protests rattled the BJP govt. Now it runs scared of its people. It will take away its citizens fundamental right to peaceably assemble by imposing Sec 144 in Uttar Pradesh tomorrow. A volcano of political & economic discontent is about to explode. indianexpress.com/article/opinio…

The BJP govt has shut trains & roads, banned more than 4 ppl gathering & cut off internet/mobiles...in its Capital. Tools sharpened in Kashmir & the Northeast by Indian state now applied everywhere - Arrest students, subvert constitution, demonize dissent. thehindu.com/news/national/…

India's leading scholar of citizenship on Modi+Shah's political logic of Natl Register of Citizenship & Citizenship Amendment Act. "Onus of proving that you’re a citizen lies upon you, & the assumption is that, until proven, you are not a citizen" #NRC_CAB newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/i…

"Amit Shah, the home minister, has repeatedly vowed to deport those he calls 'infiltrators' & 'termites'. But there is little likelihood of any other country accepting them, & India is now building detention centres to hold stateless foreigners" @AmyKazmin ft.com/content/b9767a…

What's kicking off in India w Modi+Shah's #CAA_NRC calculation is big. Firstly, Govt flailing in an own-goal financial & jobs crisis after having fired technocrats. But w state repression the escalation-response will take over. Its back to the seething 80s. A million mutinies now

Modi & Shah have unleashed the 'Furies of Indian Communalism'. Achin Vanaik has been the finest analyst of Hindu Nationalism since the 1980s. Excellent interview on how the world's largest far-Right force has made India's Second Republic. ht @DanielDenvir thedigradio.com/podcast/hindu-…

Salaam to Jakob Lindenthal. A German student from Dresden at IIT-Madras deported from India after protesting in solidarity against Modi's CAA-NRC.

"78kg of love for this country & 78kg of contempt for some of the people who rule it." #IndiaAgainstCAA_NRC thewire.in/rights/german-…

BJP's brownshirts commit atrocities on Delhi students #JNUViolence. 'Fascism begins to flourish in a democracy only with the active complicity & connivance of the state.' Jairus Banaji on 21stC Indian fascism compared w 20thC Europe historicalmaterialism.org/blog/political… youtube.com/watch?v=Ea67qX…

“The targeting of enemies —minorities,liberals,secularists, leftists, urban naxals, intellectuals, assorted protestors — is not driven by a calculus of ordinary politics. It is driven by will, ideology...”-@pbmehta. Violence to make fascist political order indianexpress.com/article/opinio…