Welcome to The Political Fix by Rohan Venkataramakrishnan, a newsletter on Indian politics and policy. To get it in your inbox every week,...
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The Big Story: Bouncer
Until the Covid-19 pandemic hit India in 2020, an unusual thing was happening in Narendra Modi’s second term as prime minister. As we wrote in August 2019, Home Minister Amit Shah – long seen as Modi’s right hand man – had begun to grab much more of the spotlight and also take ownership of the government’s big moves, from the Article 370 abrogation to the Citizenship Act amendments.
At one point it almost seemed as if Modi’s image was being transformed purely into that of an almost-presidential statesman, with Shah taking on the messier day-to-day politics. Then 2020 brought the pandemic, forcing the government to rely more heavily on Modi’s credibility over Shah’s rabble-rousing persona, while health concerns meant that the home minister was relatively restrained for some stretches of the year.
Last week, two months into 2021, we received another sign that the Bharatiya Janata Party leadership is willing to place Modi firmly on a pedestal well above...
