A winning strategy.

"India, the fastest growing major economy in the world, is rapidly moving towards becoming one of the top three global economies, said Prime Minsiter Narendra Modi." Mint. "PM Modi urged the country...to move towards more self-reliance, manufacture everything from fertilisers to jet engines and EV batteries, and vowed to protect farmers in the face of trade conflict with Washington." "Modi announced lower goods and services taxes (GST) from October - a move that could help boost consumption." Reuters. Mr Modi is promising import substitution. "China's restriction on exports of rare earth magnets, which are crucial for the auto sector especially electric vehicles, is a wake-up call and India must act with urgency to ramp up domestic exploration and production of critical materials." DH. Will take decades - so much for EV batteries. "Indian farmers are effectively taxed, not subsidised, agricultural economist Dr Ashok Gulati has said, citing international producer support benchmarks and warning that policy distortions continue to suppress farm incomes under the guise of consumer welfare." BT. "How would India deliver decent returns to farmers on their cotton crop if demand swoons in its biggest overseas market for shirts, trousers and T-shirts?" And, "with a belligerent Washington threatening to upend a vast swathe of local factory jobs, there will be less money at home to buy domestically produced goods," wrote Andy Mukherjee. "Tamil Nadu's textile exporters have sounded the alarm after US President Donald Trump imposed steep tariffs on Indian goods, endangering 20,000 factories and nearly 3 million jobs in the state's knitwear hub of Tiruppur." BT. "Indian PM Modi and his ruling party have seized on growing friction with Trump to bolster support from Indian farmers areas of crucial state elections." "Modi promised supporters he'd protect the interests of farmers, even if it means he pays a personal price for it." ET. What personal price? Will he resign his post if farmer incomes fall? Absolutely not. For Mr Modi, winning elections is everything and he intends to stay in office for as long as he can. India's uninformed poor are easily fooled and Mr Modi is an expert at that. As he did after demonetisation (wikipedia)." "As per RBI data, it's safe to say that demonetisation has been a failure of epic proportions," wrote economist Vivek Kaul. The poor people, who deal only in cash, suffered enormously (CFA) but Mr Modi's party the BJP won the following assembly election in Uttar Pradesh in a landslide by convincing the poor that the rich had to suffer the indignity of having to stand in queues outside banks to convert their money (Mint). Schadenfreude won over hunger and misery. "Expectations that import substitution in India might succeed this time around are premised on the twin assumptions that the policy is being implemented in a very different environment from the past and and that the instruments being employed are also different. But the country's previous import substitution episodes also differed from one another along those dimensions and every one of them failed," wrote Prof Arvind Panagariya in 2023. Mr Modi is promising failure to win elections. The poor will pay the price. And vote for him.