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Akshay Alladi

@akshayalladi

Feb 2

“There is no country that can rival the Indian Peninsula with respect to the unity of its culture. It has not only a geographic unity, but it has over and above all a deeper and a much more fundamental unity— the indubitable cultural unity that covers the land from end to end.”

The logical mistake many make is to think that the existence of diversity in itself means there is no fundamental unity. That there is some loose super structure on organic entities (states/ regions, communities etc.). That mistake arises because it is inconceivable to some….

…that something can have BOTH unity, and heterogeneity. But that IS the Indian civilisation - and has been for millennia. A coherent yet diverse one where there is an organic sense of oneness which is primary, even while (in fact because of) nurturing diversity.

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Akshay Alladi

@akshayalladi

Jan 16

Modi’s economic philosophy: 1. Fiscally conservative 2. “Moderniser” - believes in infra development and formalisation 3. New Welfarism - public provision of basic private goods which prevent poverty traps 4. Reformer - orientation towards a greater private sector participation..

…5. Visible hand for manufacturing - industrial and trade policy geared towards making India a manufacturing hub.

That doesn’t make him a Reagan - Thatcher style neoliberal, nor a “socialist”. Maybe a US Whig would be better parallel, but even that is a different context.

This is a description, not praise. I think he is too pedantic (and has been wrong) on fiscal conservatism, mixed bag on modernisation (good on infra, formalisation has been skewed towards push rather than pull), distinctively solid on welfare, good on reforms, and lately good…

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Akshay Alladi

@akshayalladi

Nov 21, 2021

Thread: Both the left liberal and non-left in India are largely unintellectual- but in very different ways. The left liberals are largely intellectually derivative - copy pasting ideas from the west as low grade translators. BUT that gives a huge advantage (1/n)

Which is access to a body of knowledge. So from philosophy to rhetoric to even policy detail, there is an advantage of scale, of tapping into that work. And since left liberalism is anyway axiomatic derivation and context independent, the same can be used as is. (2/n)

At best one has to do low grade translation. So race = caste operation gives you a 100 rhetorical devices, policies etc. to do. Sometimes not even that. It isn’t just left that too, even other versions of liberalism are context independent (3/n)

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Akshay Alladi

@akshayalladi

Nov 20, 2021

PVNR was partially “reforms by stealth” and it was also during a crisis. ABV reformed openly. But both lost, not *because* of reforms, but they neither helped nor hurt.

UPA was not “reforms by stealth”, rather zero reforms but massive stealth - stealing public money that is.

Neither is all governance=economic policy, nor is all economic policy = “reforms”. Industrial policy, fiscal policy, infra are not “reforms”, but important, even more critical than “reforms”. And governance goes beyond economic policy as well- defence, education, social issues

Many unlocks are also at the state level for reforms, and not all things that change economic outcomes are strictly *economic* reforms. Take law and order and policing, and local judiciary - all will improve economic outcomes. Local business regulations. Then of course…..

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Akshay Alladi

@akshayalladi

Oct 15, 2021

Thread: “Religion” (actually Dharma, mistranslated) does permeate many aspects of Indian life (it is not just an undercurrent). But actually India or Hinduism isn’t the exception here. Not just Indic faiths, even Islam permeates the lives of its adherents. (1/n)

“Religion”, culture are inextricably linked. That there could be a separation of public and private spheres, and that religion is a matter of “private belief” not necessarily public observance and culture is ONLY Christian theology, and unintelligible to other societies. (2/n)

Scholars such as Jakob de Roover have traced that not just to the separation between the regnum (the realm of the king) and the sacerdotium (the rule of God and the Church), but also to the body- soul and hence belief -practice distinctions in Christianity. (3/n)

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Akshay Alladi

@akshayalladi

Sep 21, 2021

Thread: Last evening, our house owner, whom we had over for dinner, was narrating an anecdote about our villa complex’s watchman from UP. He had gone back home only to find that his brother had sold one of their ancestral lands to someone. The sale was technically “legal” (1/n)

The watchman then appealed to the Panchayat. Not just the Panchayat elders, but even the buyer of the land, on hearing of the fact that the seller had not consulted his own brother before selling their ancestral land, saw that as a violation of “Dharam” (2/n)

The buyer returned the land and got back his money. Everyone involved was convinced that was the right thing to do. We were then musing- how much does our *law* reflect our own customary practices and shared moral intuitions? (3/n)

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