Editorial

The publication of Bihar's caste-based population figures and socio-economic survey report has come as a massive reality check not just for Bihar, but for much of North India as well. We now have a much clearer idea about the caste configuration of Bihar and also about the scale of poverty and unemployment that continues to persist despite the relentless rhetorical celebration of development in the state.

EB (Electoral Bonds) and ED (Enforcement Directorate) have emerged as the two biggest sources of power for the Modi government. In the ongoing elections to Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, the ED has actually become the star campaigner for the BJP. The ED has been in existence for a long time, but what the Modi government has done is to weaponise it to target its opponents. The electoral bonds have been invented and introduced by the Modi government to facilitate unbridled and anonymous corporate funding for the BJP.

Every year the RSS observes Vijayadashami as its foundation day with an annual address by the Sangh supremo. Since 2014 with the rise of the Modi government the RSS has of course acquired an unprecedented level of prominence and power in India and the Vijayadashami address of Mohan Bhagwat is seen as a key text throwing light on the unfolding Sangh-BJP project.

Following the sudden October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas we are now witnessing nothing short of a genocidal Israeli campaign against Gaza. The combination of relentless carpet-bombing and a total embargo on all essential supplies including food, water, fuel, electricity and medicines is pushing up the death toll every hour. More than 4,000 Palestinians with approximately 3,420 civilians including 1,413 children and 806 women have reportedly been killed in the first twelve days of the Israeli offensive.

Even as nearly one million children of Gaza face a genocidal campaign by Israel driven by relentless bombing and a cruel embargo on essential supplies, the Global Hunger Index 2023 has drawn our attention to the growing pangs of hunger across the world. The GHI2023 report attributes the alarming global hunger scene to a combination of recent developments like the Covid pandemic and Russia-Ukraine war apart from deeply embedded socio-economic reasons and the rapidly worsening climate crisis.

The early morning raids on 3 October on the residences of nearly fifty journalists and employees associated with digital news portal Newsclick signalled an extremely sinister assault on India's critical media voices. The Newsclick raids in different NCR locations were preceded by NIA raids on human rights campaigners and civil society activists in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana just the previous day.

At a time when the Narendra Modi government has failed to conduct the decadal census, Bihar has moved ahead and conducted a caste survey of the state’s population. Defying the BJP’s desperate attempts to stall the survey, or at the least the publication of its findings, the Bihar government successfully accomplished the caste survey and chose the 154th Gandhi Jayanti to go public with the overall summary of the statistical findings. 

Two big events were billed for September in India – the G20 summit followed by a special session of Parliament. A lot of hype was created around these two events and the Modi propaganda machine is now busy showcasing them as two stellar achievements of the regime. But these events and their outcomes have given us enough of a reality check to see through this hype.

Ever since the emergence of a broad-based united opposition, the Modi government and the entire Sangh-BJP brigade have been visibly rattled. The government is fully aware that even in 2019, against the backdrop of the hyper-nationalist wave triggered by the Pulwama massacre, the combined vote-share of the NDA did not exceed 45% while the BJP’s own vote-share remained less than 40%.

A year-long series of G20 events spread over India's vast and diverse urban landscape concluded with the 18th summit meeting in New Delhi on 8-10 September. Since this was the first such major international event hosted by India after the 1983 Non-Aligned Movement summit and the 2010 Commonwealth Games, it understandably attracted a great deal of public attention not just in India but also internationally.