Right-Wing Intellectuals & Intellectualism

A majority of intellectuals happen to be Leftists. And the Right refers to this majority as 'intellectuals' – not as 'Leftist intellectuals'. This seems to be a reasonable and acceptable approximation. But it is actually a dangerous mistake. Why? Because every time we refer to Leftist intellectuals as just 'intellectuals', we are saying that intellectualism and the Left are one and the same. We are surrendering the intellectual space to the Left. We are running away from the intellectual battle-field. Many right-wingers are fine with this. They say: "Leftists are thinkers; we are workers. They are arm-chair/ivory-tower people; we are real/practical people. They can keep their thought/thinking. We will do social work and build a strong society. We will do political work, win elections and rule the country. Thus we will build a strong India".

This kind of thinking is ignorance at its worst. What is a nation? What makes a great nation? What is a society? What makes a strong society? These are fundamental questions. And to know their answers, all we have to do is look at the 5000-year-old history of India. When we do that, we see that for 4000 years India was the greatest civilisation in the world. India's empires were the richest and most powerful empires in the world. How were these political and economic achievements possible? They were possible because they were built on the foundation of thought/thinking: philosophy, mathematics and science. Our kings, emperors, warriors, soldiers, traders, merchants, artisans, craftsmen, farmers and farm-workers built our rich and powerful empires – no doubt. But our philosophers, mathematicians and scientists laid the foundation for it.

What does all this mean for us today in the 21st century? The right-wing/nationalist project is to make India a superpower – technologically, economically and militarily. And to achieve this, it is not enough to simply 'build a strong society, win elections and rule the country'. Because a country can become strong technologically, economically and militarily only if it has a solid foundation of thought/thinking. So to make India a superpower, we must begin with the domain of thought/thinking. We must stop surrendering this domain to the Left. We must take it back and make it our own. And for that, the first step is to stop referring to Leftist intellectuals as just 'intellectuals' – and call them by their correct name: 'Leftist intellectuals' (or better still, just 'Leftists'). Then we must take the second step: developing right-wing/nationalist intellectuals.

Demonetisation, Modi and the 2019 Election

In November 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in one stroke scrapped all ₹500 and ₹1000 notes. These accounted for 85% of India's cash. And India's economy is 80% informal/unorganised – which is heavily cash-based. The new notes took a long time to arrive – and people stood in long queues in banks and ATMs for many weeks. More importantly, demonetisation (DeMo) devastated the cash-intensive informal sector. Many small-scale enterprises shut down – and threw their unskilled workers into unemployment and poverty. The impact showed both in the form of a lower growth rate and also a higher unemployment. Of course, there were going to be long-term benefits: more formalisation, more digitalisation, more tax-payments, etc. But these are of interest only to economists. In a democracy, a political party has to face elections every 5 years. In this case, there were only 2.5 years to go for the next national election. So DeMo looked like a politically suicidal move.

Over the next 2.5 years, the Indian economy grappled with two major problems: unemployment and agrarian distress. Unemployment reached a 45-year high and it had definitely been made worse (if not created) by DeMo. Agrarian distress was also at least partially due to DeMo – because agriculture is also a cash-intensive sector. The 2019 national election approached and political scientists said the BJP would pay for its sins. Specifically, the Prime Minister would pay for his sin: DeMo. So the BJP which had won a majority on its own in 2014 would now fall to around 200 seats. Even the NDA would not win a majority – it would get around 250 seats. So the BJP/NDA would need one, two or most probably all three of the 'neutral' state parties (TRS, YCP, BJD) to form the government. Narendra Modi would become Prime Minister once again – but this time he would be much weaker. This was the consensus opinion of almost all political scientists.

Then the election happened. And the BJP won 303 seats – with the NDA winning totally 358 seats. Even by itself, this was an earthquake. And coming in the wake of a politically suicidal move like DeMo, it was a double-earthquake. So how did Narendra Modi manage to pull it off? He did it mainly through many pro-poor welfare schemes – but that is less important. What is more important is the basic fact that he pulled it off at all. Let this sink in: Narendra Modi carried out a politically suicidal move like DeMo and then went on to win 300+ seats. So what does this mean? It means only one thing: Narendra Modi is politically invincible. He is electorally bullet-proof. He can do anything (I repeat: ANYTHING) – and still win the next election. Conventional political wisdom can go to hell . . .

Narendra Modi's Welfare Capitalism

India's economic models:

Period	Prime Minister	Economic Model
1991–1996	P V Narasimha Rao	Capitalism
1998–2004	A B Vajpayee	Capitalism
2004–2014	Manmohan Singh	Socialism
2014–2019	Narendra Modi	Welfare Capitalism

Welfare Capitalism = 50% free-market capitalism + 50% pro-poor welfare schemes