Imagine India was not a democracy. There was an Emperor in New Delhi who addressed his people once a month, strutted around the world before Covid, gave pep-talk littered with religious references at times of crisis, parleyed with kings and other world leaders; Imagine further..
That the Emperor appointed a Council of Ministers to implement his ideas and that the deal was that they credited him, the Emperor with successes, and took the blame for failures. Imagine also that the Emperor had hired an army of courtiers whose job it was to sing his praises
Imagine that these courtiers did not have to attend the durbar but instead would sit in airconditioned studios from where their Songs of Praise would be carried into peoples' homes. Imagine also that there as a peoples assembly at which the Emperor deigned periodically to attend
And make a grand speech extolling his own achievements and castigating the previousb democratic regime, Add in an Imperial Police Network whose job it was to enforce loyalty to the Emperor by confusing criticism of him with sedition against the Empire.
This Emperor would govern by diktats ("that currency will be illegal from tonight", "The country will shut down for 21 days because everyone else is shutting down", It's all #aatmaNirbhar now"), diktats which his Council of Ministers and Courtiers would explain and defend.
Finally imagine that the rich merchants in this utiopia pay their fealty through special but anonymous bearer bonds to the Emperor in return for special favours -the sole license to trade, the exclusive right to build something.
If you have lent me your imagination this far and I have not lost you, tell me this.
Is this utopia all imaginary?
Is there someplace, some country at some time, that you are reminded of? India last 6 years maybe?
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