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By:

Correspondent

23 August 2024 at 4:29:04 pm

Festive Surge

India’s bazaars have glittered this Diwali with the unmistakable glow of consumer confidence. The country’s festive sales crossed a staggering Rs. 6 lakh crore with goods alone accounting for Rs. 5.4 lakh crore and services contributing Rs. 65,000 crore. More remarkable still, the bulk of this spending flowed through India’s traditional markets rather than e-commerce platforms. After years of economic caution and digital dominance, Indians are once again shopping in person and buying local....

Festive Surge

India’s bazaars have glittered this Diwali with the unmistakable glow of consumer confidence. The country’s festive sales crossed a staggering Rs. 6 lakh crore with goods alone accounting for Rs. 5.4 lakh crore and services contributing Rs. 65,000 crore. More remarkable still, the bulk of this spending flowed through India’s traditional markets rather than e-commerce platforms. After years of economic caution and digital dominance, Indians are once again shopping in person and buying local. This reversal owes much to policy. The recent rationalisation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) which trimmed rates across categories from garments to home furnishings, has given consumption a timely push. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s September rate cuts, combined with income tax relief and easing interest rates, have strengthened household budgets just as inflation softened. The middle class, long squeezed between rising costs and stagnant wages, has found reason to spend again. Retailers report that shoppers filled their bags with everything from lab-grown diamonds and casual wear to consumer durables and décor, blurring the line between necessity and indulgence. The effect has been broad-based. According to Crisil Ratings, 40 organised apparel retailers, who together generate roughly a third of the sector’s revenue, could see growth of 13–14 percent this financial year, aided by a 200-basis-point bump from GST cuts alone. Small traders too have flourished. The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) estimates that 85 percent of total festive trade came from non-corporate and traditional markets, a robust comeback for brick-and-mortar retail that had been under siege from online rivals. This surge signals a subtle but significant cultural shift. The “Vocal for Local” and “Swadeshi Diwali” campaigns struck a patriotic chord, with consumers reportedly preferring Indian-made products to imported ones. Demand for Chinese goods fell sharply, while sales of Indian-manufactured products rose by a quarter over last year. For the first time in years, “buying Indian” has become both an act of economic participation and of national pride. The sectoral spread of this boom underlines its breadth. Groceries and fast-moving consumer goods accounted for 12 percent of the total, gold and jewellery 10 percent, and electronics 8 percent. Even traditionally modest categories like home furnishings, décor and confectionery recorded double-digit growth. In the smaller towns that anchor India’s consumption story, traders say stable prices and improved affordability kept registers ringing late into the festive weekend. Yet, much of this buoyancy rests on a fragile equilibrium. Inflation remains contained, and interest rates have been eased, but both could tighten again. Sustaining this spurt will require continued fiscal prudence and regulatory clarity, especially as digital commerce continues to expand its reach. Yet for now, the signs are auspicious. After years of subdued demand and inflationary unease, India’s shoppers appear to have rediscovered their appetite for consumption and their faith in domestic enterprise. The result is not only a record-breaking Diwali, but a reaffirmation of the local marketplace as the heartbeat of India’s economy.

Cousin Clutch

Uddhav Thackeray’s politics, cloaked more in his pride than in ideological rigidity, has now descended into unvarnished desperation. The spectacle on the 59th Foundation Day of the two Shiv Sena factions laid bare not only the erosion of Uddhav’s authority but also the hollowness of his leadership. With his outfit – the Shiv Sena (UBT) – facing fragmentation, his corporators deserting him and his base steadily crumbling, Uddhav made a public and almost plaintive appeal to his estranged cousin Raj Thackeray of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS).


With the BMC polls looming, Uddhav’s overture smacks of survival instinct. Raj, the very man who was forced out of Shiv Sena in late 2005 due to Uddhav’s opaque ascent within the party hierarchy, now finds himself being courted as a potential saviour. But unlike 2006, the roles are reversed. Uddhav is no longer the reluctant prince crowned by Balasaheb, but a beleaguered warlord without a kingdom, saddled with strange, ideologically opposed bedfellows like the Sharad Pawar-led NCP (SP) and the Congress. The symbolism could not be more ironic as a man once dismissive of Raj’s charisma is now grovelling for a tie-up with him, hoping that Marathi votes can be reunited to salvage his political ruin.


Uddhav’s choice in 2019 to ally with Sharad Pawar’s NCP (then undivided) and the Congress was seen as a clear betrayal of the mandate he fought for alongside the BJP. The optics of that ideological somersault were never convincing.


Uddhav cast aside Hindutva for secularism, only to be punished for it by his own rank and file when Eknath Shinde, along with most of the Sena MLAs, split the Shiv Sena in 2022 in a clear referendum on Uddhav’s stewardship. Today, bereft of the original party’s name, symbol, and most of its legislators, Uddhav clings to borrowed moral legitimacy and inherited nostalgia.


But if Uddhav’s outreach to Raj is reflects his helplessness, it is no less ironic. For Raj Thackeray too is a diminished figure.


Once styled as Balasaheb’s ideological and oratorical heir, he now wanders Maharashtra’s political wastelands in a desperate bid to remain relevant. His MNS, forged in the fires of nativism, rode briefly on a wave of anti-north Indian sentiment in the late 2000s, gaining notoriety for assaults on migrants. Since then, Raj’s fortunes have waned. The MNS was routed in the 2014 and 2019 elections to be reduced to a fringe player.


Uddhav hopes that Raj’s appeal in municipal wards of Mumbai might plug his leaking vote bank. In the unlikely event the alliance does happen, it will not be borne of conviction but of exhaustion.


What remains of the once-mighty Shiv Sena is a tale of two men trapped in the myths of legacy, reduced to scavenging relevance in the alleyways of municipal politics. Marathi voters, long courted with emotional blackmail and street-level theatrics, deserve better than recycled bloodline politics. Raj may or may not extend his hand. But no union of weakness can produce strength.


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