Welcome to The India Fix by Shoaib Daniyal, a newsletter on Indian politics. To get it in your inbox every Monday, sign up here . Have fe...
Welcome to The India Fix by Shoaib Daniyal, a newsletter on Indian politics. To get it in your inbox every Monday, sign up here. Have feedback, interesting links or memes? Send them to shoaib@scroll.in.
On Friday, Indians woke up to an unusual sight: their usually belligerent, strongman prime minister was “apologising” to the country while declaring that he would withdraw three farm laws passed by Parliament in 2020.
Aimed at liberalising the agricultural sector by allowing the entry of corporate capital and hence, the withdrawal of the state, the three laws were controversial from the word go. They were first promulgated as an ordinance in June, 2020 bang in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic. In September, they were bulldozed through Parliament, without so much as a vote by MPs in the Rajya Sabha. (Here’s an older piece by me on the dodgy events in the Rajya Sabha that day.)
A year before this, the BJP had won an incredible victory in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, buoyed by a nationalist surge after the government claimed an Indian fighter aircraft had crossed over into Pakistani airspace and bombed a militant hideout. After the win, Modi became, without a doubt, the strongest prime minister since Indira Gandhi.
That even at this impressive peak, Modi could...
