Raghav's Take

On this episode of Raghav’s Take, The Quint’s Editor-in-Chief, Raghav Bahl explains how SP chief Akhilesh Yadav can unite Mayawati, Priyanka Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, to pose a formidable threat to the Modi-led BJP in the 2019 General elections.

For those who haven’t heard, a political debate is raging on whether the 2019 elections will be modelled on 1971, when Indira Gandhi trounced a hasty, ill-matched Opposition alliance, or on 2004, when the “invincible” Vajpayee crumbled before a seemingly weak, incoherent patchwork of parties. As with Modi in 2019, both elections were fought by towering incumbents against a bevy of disparate, but united, opponents. Arithmetically, it was a one-on-one contest in most Lok Sabha constituencies. But the two outcomes were like chalk and cheese. What will be Modi’s fate? Before you can answer that question, you need to know the “how, what, why” of the landmark general elections of 1971 and 2004\. Tune in to Raghav’s Take for more.

Never waste a good crisis! Because what we weathered this week was a blood-curdling dogfight between India and Pakistan that could have nuked half the global population in and around South Asia.  I concede there is an element of exaggeration here, but big wars often get triggered by tiny accidents of judgement. So better to exaggerate than get tortured in a nuclear winter. Yet a crisis of such proportions is also an opportunity to grow up, become a wiser person/country. So, will India and Pakistan seize upon this dangerous wrinkle to become mature, moderate nuclear neighbours?  Listen to the full podcast now!

In the late 1940s, India and China won independence from colonial rule. While the trajectories of their respective freedom movements were quite different, there was one remarkable similarity. Both broke up into two enemy nations apiece, China/Taiwan and India/Pakistan. For seven decades now, these pairs of estranged siblings have stayed implacable foes. But as China closed in on Superpower status, it de-hyphenated from Taiwan without lessening its hostility. China is now America’s global rival, not Taiwan’s principal adversary. Unfortunately, India has remained fixated on Pakistan, even as our economic heft has multiplied manifold. Yet we continue to invest almost all our diplomatic capital in an India-Pakistan binary. This must change. A country’s standing in world affairs is defined by who its primary competitors are. India must raise its gaze from Pakistan, without lessening its chokehold, yet diminishing the high-pitched/overt importance we give it in our foreign policy narrative. Tune in to this podcast, where The Quint’s Editor-in-Chief Raghav Bahl talks about why India should get away from Pakistan crossfire and give primacy to China instead.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi 1.0 is done. With the Model Code of Conduct for the general elections now in force, his first innings has effectively ended. As he pitches to get re-elected, we should call in his report card. Tune in to Raghav's Take!

Congress President Rahul Gandhi's NYAY (Nyuntam Aay Yojana, or Minimum Income Plan), which involves giving Rs 72,000 each to five crore poor families, is a big political idea for the 2019 polls that sent BJP political heavyweights into a panic mode. Is the NYAY scheme actually feasible? The Quint's Editor-in-Chief Raghav Bahl explains how it can be done. Tune in!

The prequel to this podcast analyses the four economic reforms that this writer is willing to acknowledge under Modi 1.0; towards the end, the article lists three other data points – on FDI, bond and equity issuances – that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been spinning at business summits to fortify his “economic dynamism.” In this sequel, The Quint’s Editor-in-Chief Raghav Bahl highlights Modi’s big economic missteps with stats and a barrage of data points - just the way Modiji likes it. Tune in!

Why is Prime Minister Narendra Modi castigating Rahul Gandhi for “running away from majority-dominated areas” to “take refuge in areas where the majority is in minority” (read Wayanad in Kerala)? The naked implication was that Gandhi had somehow demeaned himself, committed blasphemy, by espousing the cause of minorities. In this podcast the Quint’s Editor-in-Chief talks about how this one angry speech one angry speech,resurrected the binary of “separate electorates” – that Hindus should elect only Hindus, while Muslims do the same for Muslims – that ultimately led to the bloody partition of India in 1947\. Tune in!

I am still reeling from Prime Minister Modi’s iconic, monumental (no, HE is not going to be happy with only two bombastic adjectives, so here goes a third), and “path-breaking” interview to Twinkle’s hubby. While everybody is scratching their heads over the “big why”, I think I’ve got it figured out. It was a clever (synonymously also desperate) ploy to wrest the initiative back from the hotheads in his party. But if the prime minister had read Mary Shelley’s 18th century masterpiece, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (“I used to read so many books at the village library”, Modi told the star struck Twinkle-hubby), he need not have done this embarrassing cameo. As per Wikipedia, it’s “the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a hideous, sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment”; but the monster murders Victor’s wife Elizabeth and brother William. Ever since then, “Frankenstein” has become a noun in English, describing a creature that turns violently upon its own creator. Now to the billion-vote question: when and how did Modi lose the narrative to his political Frankenstein(s)? Let’s begin at the beginning… Listen to the full podcast!

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad made a default entry in India’s savagely polarised polls of 2019\. Because the irrepressible Shatrughan Sinha made an awful faux pas at an election rally, where he included Jinnah, along with Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Indira and Rajiv, as “respected members of the Congress family who built our nation”.  This gave the BJP very potent grist for its “Congress is pro-Pakistan” propaganda – after all, if the founder of Pakistan was a cherished Congressman, then their allegation was irrefutable, right? Sinha had to beat a hasty retreat, saying it was a “slip of my tongue”. He had mistakenly said Jinnah, when he meant Maulana Azad. But it’s almost impossible to confuse Jinnah with Azad, for they were diametrically opposite politicians. Frankly, I’ve often wondered why Maulana Azad figures so little in contemporary political discourse, while his peers like Nehru, Patel and Bose dominate.  Listen to the podcast for the full story!

India’s forex reserves are nearly $430 bn and growing. If we can’t muster the stomach to raise $10 billion in the overseas market, let’s just quit. Raghav Bahl (https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%23RaghavBahl) backs Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s proposal on sovereign bonds. 

11:15 am, 5 August 2019. I stood stunned and immersed in a time-lapse video as Home Minister Amit Shah read out the Resolution abolishing Article 370 and the state of Jammu & Kashmir in Rajya Sabha. If you were a liberal, you castigated, by rote – “the Kashmir Valley will now become India’s Gaza”. If a conservative, you celebrated, almost crudely – “we will make the Kashmir Valley into another Switzerland”. But I stayed quiet – consumed by a deep, viscous silence – as I tried to understand this political whiplash. I did not want to give a quick, adolescent reaction. I wanted to assess the government’s invoking of Article 370 to kill Article 370 on the three touchstones of Mandate, Method and Morality. Listen to the podcast for the full story. Read the story here (https://www.thequint.com/videos/news-videos/raghav-bahl-on-revoking-article-370-35a-jammu-kashmir-laddakh) .

As always, the strapping 40-year-old swept into his corner room in a Gift City high-rise with the practised, breezy “I love Monday morning” air from his early Manhattan days. He was a celebrated first-generation entrepreneur, but in India he never took his Silicon Valley title of Founder-CEO; instead, he was simply PuFf, a dandy acronym for Pradhan (Chief) Foreman of a billion-dollar unicorn. While in Ahmedabad, do as Gujaratis do! Both his executive assistants (EAs) walked in, one carrying a steaming cup of coffee, the other a box of chocolate cake. What happens next? Tune in to Raghav's Take!

Main jaanta hoon ki aaj desh ek aarthik mandhi main hai; lekin main 130 crore desh vaasiyon ko yeh vishwaas deta hoon ki hum jald hi isko aarthik josh main badal dengey! (I know that we are currently in the grip of an economic slowdown; but I want to assure my 130 cr fellow Indians that we shall soon convert this gloom into economic optimism!) I was yearning to hear these words from the Ramparts of the Red Fort. I wanted Prime Minister Modi to use his legendary oratory and hope-generating skills to assuage the economy. But alas, he did not even acknowledge that there is a severe slowdown of demand and investment. Instead his prescription was more of the same same, with an additional/unusual invocation to domestic tourists! After hearing today’s speech, I had almost resigned myself to an unchanged Modi-nomics 2.0 until my eyes fell on this quote (from The Economic Times, 12 August 2019). Tune in!

In Prime Minister Modi’s unexpected, stirring commendation of “wealth creators” – most tellingly, by using popular English terminology, instead of conjuring up a Hindi equivalent like poonji utpadak (as he is wont to do) – he was signaling a reach-out to new-gen entrepreneurs and elite business-people who have gotten estranged from him. And by obliquely acknowledging that his regime may have treated them with contempt/suspicion – mark his cutting words in Hindi, heen bhavna – he was being as contrite as Modi can ever be on a public platform. After finishing an energetic 94-minute speech from the Ramparts of the Red Fort, Modi is understood to have driven straight into a brainstorming session with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and her band of policy-men on how to fix the economy. Read the rest of the story here (https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion/navratri-nine-point-economic-reboot-for-a-puritan-pm-modi) .