Tag Archives: Maharashtra Elections

Culture, Debates, Democracy, Government, Politics

Goodbye Welfare State ? Welcome ‘Labharthis’

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Ahead of Maharashtra Assembly polls, announcement of schemes like the Ladki-Bahin scheme reduce citizens to being ‘subjects’ rather than persons with basic constitutional rights.

Image Courtesy: PTI

Times have definitely changed.

There was a time earlier when a postcard sent by an ordinary citizen had spurred the judiciary into action, not any more.

One does not know whether the legal notice sent by a conscientious journalist to the Maharashtra government will similarly have any impact or not.

The focus of this legal notice is on the recent scheme launched by the Maharashtra government, called Ladki Bahin, under which women will be given Rs 1,500 per month. Launched on the eve of the elections to the state, the notice raises issues of the scheme’s timing, the claim that Rs 1,500 given to women would be sufficient; how such doles create a dependency culture and how it effectively punctures the whole idea of a welfare state. (Read the full article here :https://www.newsclick.in/goodbye-welfare-state-welcome-labharthis)—————————-

Here is a Hindi version of this write-up :https://janchowk.com/pahlapanna/citizens-as-beneficiary-the-achievement-of-the-amrit-kaal-of-the-republic/

Bad ideas, Debates, Government, Law, Politics, Right watch

Savarkar, India’s ’Ratna’ of a Different Kind!

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BJP’s poll promise of Bharat Ratna for Savarkar, who inspired a wide spectrum of fanatic individuals and violent organisations, shows the moral vacuousness of the Hindutva project

Savarkar

“The curious fact is that as we move into the 21st century, historians have become central to politics. We historians are the monopoly suppliers of the past. The only way to modify the past that does not sooner or later go through historians is by destroying the past….Mythology is taking over from knowledge”.

It was in the wee hours of dawn of the 21st century that renowned scholar and historian, Eric Hobsbawm, had talked about the process of  “destroying the past” to “modify” it or how “mythology is replacing knowledge” in his speech at Columbia University in New York City.

Much water has flown down the Ganges, the Rheins, the Yangtzes of the world and as we stand at the cusp of the third decade of the 21st century, one realises that how this process — both literally and metaphorically — has advanced to different corners of the globe.

With the ascent of Hindutva supremacist forces in polity and society in this part of the world, perhaps this process has reached its extreme, so much so that every other saffronite seems to have gathered enough confidence to claim legitimacy to any weird thing. The news that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in its election manifesto (for the Maharashtra Assembly) has promised that it would confer Bharat Ratna, the country’ topmost honour, on VD Savarkar if voted to power, should be seen in this light.

( Read the full text here : https://www.newsclick.in/Savarkar-India-Ratna-of-a-Different-Kind)