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Correspondent

23 August 2024 at 4:29:04 pm

Red Romance

For long, the Naxalite in news was recognisable by the gun. But the more insidious version of Naxalism has never needed a rifle. It has thrived in varsity classrooms and newspaper and magazine columns, fostered by men and women sympathetic to it. These academics and other members of the so-called intelligentsia have long enjoyed their status as ‘respectable dissenters’ even when their politics offered intellectual alibis for Naxals carrying guns. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent...

Red Romance

For long, the Naxalite in news was recognisable by the gun. But the more insidious version of Naxalism has never needed a rifle. It has thrived in varsity classrooms and newspaper and magazine columns, fostered by men and women sympathetic to it. These academics and other members of the so-called intelligentsia have long enjoyed their status as ‘respectable dissenters’ even when their politics offered intellectual alibis for Naxals carrying guns. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent Independence Day warning about “dimaagi Naxals” should therefore not be dismissed as another political label. His larger point was that an insurgency does not survive on ammunition alone. It survives on ideas and people willing to make violence appear morally fashionable. The most revealing feature of India’s Maoist movement was never simply its brutality. It was the strange attraction it exercised over sections of the metropolitan Left elite. The Naxalite with an AK-47 could be transformed into a romantic revolutionary while the policeman he killed became an instrument of an oppressive state. This was not merely naïveté. At its ugliest, it was the intellectual laundering of political violence. The fantasy of the romantic revolutionary has always been seductive. In this narrative, amplified through sympathetic media priding itself on telling ‘truth to power,’ India was not a constitutional democracy struggling with inequality and corruption but an inherently illegitimate state waiting to be overthrown. In the minds of this elite Left, Maoist violence has often been recast as resistance while attacks on infrastructure as blows against capitalism. The armed overthrow of the Indian republic was the liberation they craved for. Some of India’s most celebrated intellectuals have flirted dangerously close to that moral inversion. The issue here is whether intellectual prestige can be used to sanitise an ideology whose practitioners have murdered civilians, policemen and public servants and terrorised some of India’s poorest districts. A university cannot be the place where Maoist romanticism acquires the legitimacy of a fashionable campus cause. Professors who turn armed insurgents into heroic revolutionaries are not merely exercising academic freedom. If they knowingly excuse violence, they are helping to construct the moral vocabulary that makes violence possible. Let’s be clear here. A professor who criticises the Indian state is not a Naxal while a journalist who exposes state excesses is not an enemy of India. But an intellectual who repeatedly excuses, glorifies or rationalises political violence cannot hide behind the word ‘dissent.’ India has paid an enormous price for the Maoist fantasy. Thousands have died. Entire regions were held back by fear while development was obstructed. The people supposedly being liberated were often the first to suffer. The armed Naxal is now being pushed towards extinction. But the Indian republic cannot afford to leave behind the romantic mythology that made the gun respectable. A democracy can tolerate dissent. It should never be expected to tolerate the glorification of those who seek its violent destruction.

No significant benefits for real estate sector

Updated: Feb 3, 2025

real estate sector

Mumbai: The Union Budget unveiled on Saturday has hardly offered any significant benefits to the realty sector especially when affordable housing remains key issue among the citizens.


Though the real estate sector lobbied for various incentives like conferring industry status, increasing subsidy for the affordable housing as well as decreasing the interest rates for home loans, the government seems to have turned a blind eye to these demands.


Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman in her speech announced the second tranche of SWAMIH (Special Window for Affordable and Mid-income housing scheme) worth Rs 15,000 crore which aims to complete construction of one lakh housing units. The scheme funds the stressed housing projects and ensures their speedy completion so that the beneficiaries get their dwellings.


Anand Gupta, Vice President, Builders Association of India (BAI) said though money is allocated to SWAMIH and infrastructure projects, much needs to be done for the realty sector. “It is unfortunate that we did not get the industry status and even concessions as this sector plays a huge role both in boosting the economy as well as the generating employment,” said Gupta.


Similar is the view of Saransh Trehan, Managing Director, Trehan Group who said “The government’s continued push for affordable housing is a step in the right direction. However, key industry demands, such as industry status for the real estate sector and a streamlined single-window clearance system, remain unaddressed. These reforms are crucial to enhancing ease of doing business, expediting project approvals, and ensuring faster delivery of homes.”

Another proposal made by the Finance Minister is she has proposed a hike of Tax-deducted at source (TDS) for income tax for rental income to Rs 6 lakh annually from the present Rs 2.40 lakh. This benefits from those who own second homes and get rents from them.


Commenting on this issue, housing activist Ramesh Prabhu, Chairman, Maharashtra Societies Welfare Association (MSWA), which deals with cooperative housing societies issues, said though the TDS hike is welcome, home buying still remains a dream especially for majority citizens of metro cities. “The houses still are exorbitantly priced and on top of that taxes also remain high. We expected some relief in this budget but there is nothing per se,” rued Prabhu.


The real estate sector had created a wish list like revising the affordable housing price cap from Rs 45 lakhs to Rs 60 lakhs as prices have risen significantly ever since it was unveiled one decade back. Similarly increasing the income tax deduction limit on interest payments under Section 80C from Rs 2 lakhs to Rs 5 lakhs. There was also demanding for reduction of home loan interest rates. However nothing has been done on this front.

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