Equal Terms; Soft Hindutva; ‘BJP B-Team’
Opinion Watch
Equal Terms
The dailies have claimed in their Editorials on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Washington DC visit that India and the U.S. now are partners of equal terms. The Economic Times and The Indian Express have argued that the process that started during the tenure of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Bill Clinton, progressed with Manmohan Singh and George Bush, is now culminating with Modi and Joe Biden.
The dailies have sought to argue that India now is not just a market but an equal partner in core concerns of the U.S. Technology is also the bedrock of the bilateral relations, they stressed, while arguing that the two nations have left behind the historical baggage to forge ties of cooperation.
Biden in the past and Antony Blinken, the U.S. Secretary of State, recently have richly spoken of the Indian firms creating jobs in America. Also, China has majorly blunted the hegemony of the U.S. in the world order. India would need to strike a fine balance to optimize gains for national interests.
Soft Hindutva
The Congress government in Karnataka has purged the RSS founder K.B. Hedgewar and V. D. Savarkar from the school textbooks, and The Telegraph in its Editorial has sifted secularism of the party with its poll s lant of soft Hindutva in Madhya Pradesh. The daily reasoned that while the Siddaramaiah government in Karnataka is erasing Hindutva vestiges by also axing anti-conversion, the Congress poll mascot Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was in the midst of chanting, prayers, Lord Hanuman symbols, etc.
The Kolkata-based daily has faulted the Congress for employing soft Hindutva for political expediency, reasoning that the large Hindu population in Madhya Pradesh is making the main Opposition party striking contrasting poses on religious issues.
While the daily calls for removing religion from politics, it is seen that regressive politics in the country draws lifeline from caste and ethnic divide also.
BJP B-Team
K. Chandrashekhar Rao is India’s most maverick of the politicians, and The Asian Age has sought to make sense of his claim that he has been a good friend of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while being in regular touch with the BSP mascot. The daily has referred to NCP strongman Sharad Pawar’s distaste for Rao and his “bid to divide the Opposition vote base” to question Telangana CM’s shifting goalposts.
The daily recalled that KCR has not been according the customary hospitality to the prime minister when he visits Telangana. At the same time, KCR had launched himself into a whirlwind for Opposition unity last year.
Emergence of the Congress as the fulcrum of the Opposition unity has made KCR a persona non grata among the non-BJP parties. But he is a maverick, and foxes know the art of survival be feeding on others.
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