Modi as Shah Alam

There are news articles that suck up to the establishment and then there is this: Narendra Modi Consigns Raghuram Rajan to History. We’d really like to believe that folks in Financial Chronicle – owned by Deccan Chronicle Holdings – were trying their hand at satire and it backfired. But something tell us this was an, umm, earnest attempt at journalism.
 

The piece essentially focuses on Modi’s push for FDI reform and how that has overshadowed RBI chief’s resignation. It starts off with a grand declaration:
 

“The tide of adverse publicity over the exit of RBI governor Raghuram Rajan that threatened to derail the government’s economic agenda was reversed with the awesome force that could be commanded by none other than prime minister Narendra Modi himself, putting to rest speculation that the world was waiting to condemn India as an economic pariah.”
 

Then in the third paragraph, the piece compares Modi to Shah Alam. In a good way.
 

“In scope, the breadth of Modi’s sweeping reforms in foreign investment guidelines compares with the firman of Mughal emperor Shah Alam granting the diwani of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa to the English East India Company in 1765, alongside free trading rights, that ultimately cleared the way for the Company’s complete takeover of the Indian market.”
 

We really don’t know what to make of it. Are they saying 100 FDI will pave way for another foreign invasion and that Modi will be responsible for it? The mind boggles.