Making Sense of the Past Year
Elections, Modi, Chowkidar, Rahul, Congress — those were the topics that occupied my newsfeed for the better half of this year. And although I never voted, I — debated, discussed, liked, and shared news about the elections extensively. Promise.
After the elections passed, and after I had raged against the results, politics took a back-seat in my life. When I was in college I usually read the news in the mornings — and never online. But this past year I’ve found myself scrolling through my phone every half-an-hour to see if there’s anything new (and there always is) — NDTV, The Guardian, Economic Times, Slate, Reddit, Facebook. And if I run out of options I Google the words “Hyderabad” or “Telengana” to see what’s happening locally. I could spend the whole day reading and still not be caught up to the latest.
During the elections, Modi promised to make India a $5 trillion economy if he was brought back to power. Frankly, I felt that this was one of those things “Modi says” — one of those election slogans that is supposed to be raved over during and forgotten afterwards. Like how he promised to bring back all the black money stashed abroad, or have ₹15 lakh deposited in every Indian’s account, or double every farmer’s income at the end of his first term.
The voters never cared about the GDP number, they knew he was bluffing. However, the media fell for it — the news sites, the TV anchors, the columnists, and the business people. Everybody. And that’s what the second half of the year has been all about.
Between 2009 and 2019 India’s economy has already doubled (from $1.3 trillion to $2.7 trillion). But have our lives become twice as good? Have roads become twice as good? Has the air in the cities become twice as good? No. Even though the economy has doubled, life has been more or less the same (if not worse).
While the GDP has been rising over the years, so has the income inequality between the rich and the poor. As the cliché goes, the rich have gotten richer and the poor have gotten poorer — not only has the government failed to elevate their quality of life, but in fact, they are worse off now than they were ten years ago.
In the past, there was never a need to discuss politics as extensively as it is today. Everything just seemed to work. Politics, economy — these were things that happened in the background and only came to the front during a scandal or when things were going sideways. My friends and I talked about issues like — pollution, climate change, construction, art, cinema, and even bitcoin — but rarely in the context of politics. If there’s one thing I’ve realized in the past year it’s that moving forward every issue is going be politicized in the news to the extent that the real problem is lost on the public.
In the meantime, listen to this:
