India Reverts to its Irrational, Tribal Normal (Part XIII)
Over the three years in which Narendra Modi has been in power, his support base has continued to increase. Indian institutions — including the courts and the media — now toe his line.
The President, otherwise a ceremonial rubber-stamp post, but the last obstacle keeping Modi from implementing a police state, comes up for re-election by a vote of the legislative houses in July 2017. No one should be surprised if a Hindu fanatic is made the next President. India is rapidly entering a new phase.
Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi on the cover of an Indian magazine in 2002, when he was the Chief Minister of the Indian province of Gujarat. During his reign in Gujarat, a civil-war like situation erupted, which seriously segregated the province’s society. It brought Hindus into a state of trance and excitement and provided them with the fake-security of the collective. Alas, wealth and civilization are created by an intense focus on value-addition, not from the short-term escapist excitement of mobs expressed through riots and rape. Destructive endeavors are a major vulnerability of poor societies, given their irrationality and lack of foresight and planning, and their short-sighted focus on high time-preference, pleasure-centered activities.
Modi, a major world-traveler, who has run around quite a bit to please foreign governments and win the support of identity-lacking non-resident Indians, is no longer going abroad with the same abandon. Historically and even today, whatever gained approval in the West is what Indians have looked up to.
But Modi has matured. Modi has directed the attention of Indians to nationalism, Hindutava (fanatic Hinduism), the army, the flag, the anthem, and other superficial collective “causes” not underpinned any values or wealth-creating, civilization-producing objectives.
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