Famously trenchant political psychologist Ashis Nandy is charged with criminal offence by the Gujarat police for “inflaming” communal hatred. His crime: an article he wrote in January blaming Gujarat’s middle-class Hindus for destroying communal harmony in the state. In Outlook, Sheela Reddy interviews Nandy:
Is the middle class more culpable than Modi in drawing the battleline between Hindus and Muslims in Gujarat?
Modi does represent the class. Development authoritarianism like in Singapore and China today is a hidden dream of the Indian middle class too. Modi personifies that dream. However, there is a larger issue involved here. Indian democracy is fast degenerating into a psephocracy-a system totally dominated by electoral victories and defeats.The moment you enter office, you begin to think of the next election.
Previously in AW: The harassment of Ashish Nandy
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