How ‘The Hindu’ co-opted Mikhail Gorbachev’s death to attack the Modi government and India

The following article was written for OpIndia. Pasting it here for reference:

Mikhail Gorbachev passed away on August 30^th, 2022. Ever since, I was eagerly waiting for the Indian media to take this opportunity to criticise the Modi government. After 8 full days, The Hindu went a step further and utilised this opportunity to criticise the people of India themselves! Today (September 6^th), The Hindu published a staggering opinion article in their editorial page, titled “Gorbachev, Macro-economics, and Gandhi”.

I would like to draw your attention to the text in the sub-title below the headline. “Concepts of free trade, financial freedom, and privatisation are not the right solutions for India’s citizens”

I am sure you have re-read the line again to make sure what you are reading is actually what has been printed. For a moment, let’s put aside the acutely insulting, preachy and condescending tone of the author (and the editor who allowed this). Have you ever heard before that “financial freedom” is actually a bad thing? Why would someone not want their fellow citizens to have “financial freedom”? Why would someone object to the concept of “free trade” that will make fellow citizens prosperous and therefore financially independent?

The answers to these questions lay in the bio of the author, published at the end of the piece. The author, Arun Maria, was appointed as member of Planning Commission in the year 2009 (by Sonia Gandhi led UPA). The mind boggles at the quality of people who have been put in high positions by Sonia Gandhi’s party. Positions from which people like Arun Maria actually decide what is the “right solution for India’s citizens”.

Arun Maria also claims in this article that he was part of a group that went to Russia in 1989 to explain the “Indian model” to Gorbachev because he wanted that advise from Rajiv Gandhi. Not only does Arun Maria rue that the “Washington economics model” won over the “Indian Model” in Russia then, he is very dejected that “it also reached India’s shores in 1991.” Clearly, Arun Maria was prone to regressive thinking from a very long time.

Arun Maria jumps from topic to topic in his article and more often than not, the topics are all not even linked to the headline in the first place! We are told that there has been “shift in balance from democracy to capitalism in the last 30 years” in the world itself.  I believe we need some extra-terrestrial intelligence to decode this statement. He writes about how his definition of capitalism has wreaked havoc in the entire world today (remember the article was supposed to be about Gorbachev!); of how meaningful property rights have increased a divide in the world; and of how capitalism created, wait for it, climate change!

But what is Arun Maria’s solution for all these devastating problems that the world is currently undergoing? Apparently, it is “Gandhi’s ethical economics?

 

Intellectual fraudsters often think that using fancy terms such as these will cover up all the lofty and empty arguments that emanate from their pen. “Gandhi’s ethical economics” is one such term that no one has heard before and therefore no one will understand now. Arun Maria seeks to explain this term in the weirdest manner possible.

He tells us that “India’s policymakers seem obsessed with increasing the size of the economy.” I must say that I heaved a sigh of relief after this line, because now everything falls into place! The author had to somehow link India’s recent achievement of becoming the 5^th largest economy to a doomsday scenario. That he chose Gorbachev’s death to do this speaks volumes about the vacuousness in his cranium (I used cranium instead of brain to sound like an intellectual!).

We are told that “The shape of an economy matters more than its size for human well-being.” By now, I have given up on trying to decode what he meant to convey with phrases like “shape of an economy”. The article now predictably ends with a recommendation to follow “Mahatma Gandhi’s calculus”, whatever that means!

The author (and the editor) uses a lot of irrelevant data to make us feel that this is an intellectual piece. Once you separate the alleged intellectual chaff and realise what the undertone of this article is, you are bound to get very angry. Angry that they actually want Indians to remain poor; angry that they do not want Indians to prosper; Angry that such regressive thinkers were part of decision-making bodies in India; angry that they continue to propagate such regressive thinking, years after their leaders have been booted out of power by Indians.