Happy New Year! Welcome to The Political Fix by Rohan Venkataramakrishnan, a newsletter on Indian politics and policy. To get it in your i...
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The Big Story: Foresight
India began 2020 in turmoil.
The subsequent 12 months did little to resolve the causes of that tumult: there was no reckoning for the economic mismanagement that saw the finance minister trigger an emergency clause before the Covid-19 pandemic hit and the debate over the Citizenship Act amendments that promised to fundamentally alter India was postponed rather than resolved. In addition, while Jammu and Kashmir is no longer under lock and key, the discontent arising out of the crushing of civil liberties in the territory is only starting to be aired.
Instead, the year offered many more challenges: nearly 150,000 Indians died after contracting Covid-19, an unplanned national lockdown led to economic free-fall, a migrant crisis, pandemic figures that were much worse than India’s neighbours, Chinese aggression in Ladakh resulted in the first casualties in 40 years on the Line of Actual Control and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party continued its illiberal turn including passing laws based on a conspiracy theory.
The year ended – like 2019 – with thousands of...
