top of page

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.

Mahayuti versus Jarange

Mahayuti versus Jarange

The political terrain in Marathwada is undergoing a seismic shift ahead of the Assembly polls. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), once the dominant force in the region, has its back to the wall following its catastrophic performance in the recent Lok Sabha election in Marathwada, where the saffron party failed to win even a single seat.


The ruling Mahayuti alliance scored just one of eight Lok Sabha in the region, with CM Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena winning the Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar seat even as the BJP scored a naught.The most prominent disruptor here was arguably Manoj Jarange-Patil, the Maratha quota activist who made good his boast of being a ‘political kingmaker.’


Despite his professed disinterest in contesting elections, Jarange-Patil is now set to supplant the established political order by fielding candidates and leveraging his influence. His year-long campaign for granting immediate reservation to Marathas within the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category had directly caused the BJP’s (and the ruling Mahayuti’s) rout in the Lok Sabha election in Marathwada, which saw big leaders like Raosaheb Danve and Pankaja Munde bite the electoral dust.


Jarange-Patil’s continued scrutiny of key BJP figures, especially his sustained verbal assault on Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, has long raised eyebrows about his hidden agenda. But the activist’s Svengali-like hold over the Maratha community, and the subsequent coalescing of an OBC versus Maratha standoff, has made it harder for BJP to walk the tightrope between placating the OBCs and appeasing the Marathas in this region.


While he will not personally contest, Jarange’s strategy involves fielding his own candidates, supporting selected candidates from other parties, and ensure the defeat of rivals. One can guess as to who Jarange’s ‘rivals’ are. Thus far, his agitation has noticeably benefited the opposition Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA).


In a region perennially bedevilled by drought and agrarian crises and industrially challenged, emotive issues have always spread like bush-fire – be it Sharad Pawar’s controversial proposal to rename Marathwada University in the 1970s to Bal Thackeray and the undivided Shiv Sena securing a foothold to the rise of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul-Muslimeen (AIMIM) in the 2000s. Thus, it is no surprise that the latest entrant in Marathwada’s boiling cauldron in Jarange-Patil and his Maratha agitation.


Against this fraught background, the prestige of several BJP and Mahayuti heavyweights are at stake on November 20.


For all its accusations at the Congress for being ‘a party of dynasts’, the BJP has fielded a number of scions from established political families in Marathwada: Shreejaya Chavan, daughter of former Chief Minister Ashok Chavan from the Chavan pocket borough of Bhokar in Nanded district. Chavan, who defected to the BJP from the Congress ahead of the Lok Sabha, was thwarted by Maratha community activists while campaigning for the BJP candidate in the general election.


The party has gone with incumbent MLA Sambhaji Patil Nilangekar, grandson of late Congress CM Shivajirao Patil Nilangekar, in Nilanga while Dhanajay Munde, an important Vanjari OBC face and Ajit Pawar’s confidant in the NCP, will be holding the Munde family bastion in Parli.


The BJP has renominated Santosh Danve, the two-term MLA from Jalna’s Bhokardhan, and son of Raosaheb Danve. It will be interesting to watch if the son will be successful in halting the Jarange juggernaut – something which the father failed to do.

Comments

bottom of page