Narendra Modi’s secret weapon: a useless opposition
A weak Congress party and disunited smaller opponents keep the BJP in power
IN A SHORT speech on November 19th Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, made a humiliating U-turn. Barely a year after pushing a trio of laws reforming agriculture through parliament, he announced their repeal. The shame was not only to have handed victory to the horde of tractor-mounted peasants doggedly protesting at the gates of India’s capital since last November. It was to have bungled the issue from the start.
This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “With enemies like these”
Asia November 27th 2021
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