ECONOMIC NOTES

The Anatomy of A ‘Hindu Rashtra’

Enable GingerCannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connectionor reload the browserDisable in this text fieldRephraseRephrase current sentenceTHE Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was founded with the objective of establishing a Hindu rashtra, or a Hindu State. The question immediately arises: what is a Hindu State? There are several countries in the world that give primacy to one religion above all others, or are theocratic, but that makes not an iota of difference to the class nature of their states.

Working Class and the Ascendancy of Neo-Fascism

Enable GingerCannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connectionor reload the browserDisable in this text fieldRephraseRephrase current sentenceWALTER Benjamin, the German philosopher who was himself a victim of fascism, had linked the ascendancy of fascism to the failed proletarian revolutions that had preceded it. He had of course Germany in mind, where, in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution, there had been several attempts to effect a similar revolution.

The Descent into Barbarism

Enable GingerCannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connectionor reload the browserDisable in this text fieldRephraseRephrase current sentenceIN The Junius Pamphlet written from jail in 1915, Rosa Luxemburg had said that the choice before mankind was between barbarism and socialism. Liberal opinion would contest this, arguing thatthe barbarism that marked the two world wars and the period in between was unrelated to capitalism; indeed the liberal tendency that comes to the fore under capitalism, it would claim, fought against the barbarism of that period.

The Budget and the Inversion of Reason

Enable GingerCannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connectionor reload the browserDisable in this text fieldRephraseRephrase current sentenceTHE BJP government holds that truth is what Modi says; if evidence points otherwise then evidence must be wrong and should be suppressed. Modi says that India never had it so good as during the last decade of his government; but since official statistics contradict him, the statistics must be wrong and the statistical system must be changed.

What the GDP Hides

Enable GingerCannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connectionor reload the browserDisable in this text fieldRephraseRephrase current sentenceEdit in Ginger×THERE are well-known problems associated with the concept of gross domestic product as well as with its measurement.

The Scourge of Unemployment

Enable GingerCannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connectionor reload the browserDisable in this text fieldRephraseRephrase current sentenceEdit in Ginger×THE unemployment situation is worse today than it has ever been in post-independence India. There are two distinct elements that have contributed to this situation. One is the fact that the output recovery from the fall caused by the pandemic-linked lockdown has not been accompanied by a comparable employment recovery.

The Question of Pensions

WE observe a strange phenomenon everyday, so strange that its strangeness goes generally unnoticed. Government spokespersons from the prime minister downwards go on repeating ad nauseam that India is the most rapidly growing major economy in the world today, that it will soon become a 5 trillion dollar economy, and that it has overtaken China in terms of the growth rate of the gross domestic product.

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