One reason India did not do well for so long after independence was that it had false heros.
Gandhi held sway on Congress and could hold it to ransom at will. On the treat of fast unto death.
He used that power to the hilt for not letting democratically elected leaders like Bose or Patel preside.
Some of Gandhi's ideas liking shunning modernity (he denied penicillin to his wife and let her die), his opposition to urbanisation (village was his ideal) would caste a long shadow on the policies that independent India adopted.
Gandhi disarmed Hindus.
Hindus totally trusted Gandhi and therefore Congress.
Hindus believed that Congress will represent Hindu interests in the negotiations for partition. But except for Patel, Hindus were totally betrayed by Congress, during partition.
Patel and Ambedkar should have been our biggest Heros post independence, not Nehru and Gandhi.
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Why did BJP give up on the CM position in Maharashtra?
Here is what I think:
While the Shinde faction has got control of the legislative party, the political Party that is Shiv Sena is still in control of the Uddhav faction.
By making Shinde the CM, BJP has paved the way for Shinde to bid for total control of the Sena, including the party symbol.
Given the numbers, BJP will still be in control of the Govt and will be able to push through its development agenda, including the flagship Infrastructure projects that Fadavis started and which were stalled by Uddhav,
In the times of the food scarcity of 1960, the monoculture of wheat and paddy made sense.
Today, the MSP system has led to a situation where wheat and paddy is being grown to rot, not only at great cost to us taxpayers, but also to our environment and to farmers.
Left to market forces, there is a natural feedback; if consumer demand for millet grows, the prices increase, sending a feedback to grow more of it in the next cycle, a glut in a commodity will send the price crashing and will be grown less in the next cycle.
Over a period of time, the market will ensure that the producers are producing as per the consumer demand.
The MSP systems cuts-off this feedback and has converted Punjab into a monoculture and a cancer belt.
If farmers must be respected, because they put food in the plate then why not the construction worker, who built the home that you live in?
Let's demand State subsidies and freebies for construction workers, paid by us taxpayers, just like we do for the farmers.
Farmers are like any other producers and businessmen, they must be respected just like any other producer.
Today, Dubai gets much better food in its plates than Bathinda, even as UAE has no farmers.
Building food supply chain is most critical.
Today, farmers in India are not producing what the market (that is we the consumers) needs, but they produce wheat, rice and sugarcane, far more than what we need and it ends up rotting in the FCI godowns.