In the BJP’s scheme of things, good politics is good economics
The Hindu‘If only his politics were as good as his economics’ — this is a familiar refrain in liberal commentaries about Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The merits of the arguments about Mr. Modi’s economics and politics apart, this liberal view is formed by an inadequate understanding of Hindutva as an ideology, and an unquestioning adherence to the dubious claim that liberal democratic politics and free market capitalism are inevitable cohabitants. The free market slogan, ‘good economics is good politics’, works in the inverse in the Hindutva scheme of things, as ‘good politics is good economics’. Connecting the country’s material progress to the resurgence of cultural politics, he said: “We are witnessing that this construction is not causing any fire but, in fact, is giving birth to energy… Embracing the sacredness of tradition and the endless possibilities of modernity, Bharat will reach the goals of prosperity by walking on both these paths.” Far from being a distraction from the development agenda, or a barrier to it, the temple is an essential foundation, and a catalyst for that agenda, by implication.
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