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“Kufr toota khuda khuda karke”.

The Prime Minister Narendra Modi has at long last broken his Sphinx-like silence. Why was he forced to speak up so late? Was it change of heart or the widespread outrage over the lynching of Dadri’s 52-year-old Mohammad Akhlaq? Or, were it the compulsions of the forthcoming Bihar assembly elections which forced him to break his 16-month-long silence? In this era of opportunistic politics, hardboiled leaders often start acting like chameleons.

Since communalism is built into the BJP’s genes, just as corruption is in the Congress’, Narendra Modi faces the unique challenge of changing, or at least moderating, his own party’s outlook if he is serious about his goal of development. Otherwise, interfaith tension will scare away investors.

The International Monetary Fund earlier this week came out with its growth forecast for various countries, which said India will remain the World's fastest growing major economy at 7.3 per cent in 2015-16. This may be marginally lower than its earlier projection of 7.5 per cent for this financial year. But the significant aspect is that India will accelerate its growth rate to 7.5 per cent next fiscal year while all other major economies are expected to slowdown.

‘Cosmopolitans’ of the Indian Union were united in their righteous anger when the news broke that the Maharashtra government had decided to make knowledge of Marathi language a pre-condition for applying for new auto-rickshaw licenses. People who will never ride an auto-rickshaw in Mumbai, people who will always converse with auto-rickshaw drivers in Hindi when in Delhi and people who never raise any eyebrow with the rule that Central government job applications can be made in Hindi but not in Marathi, have now pounced upon this, waving the banner of ‘cosmopolitanism’.

Writer Nayantara Sehgal and poet Ashok Vajpeyi have returned their Sahitya Akademi Awards in protest against lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq Ahmed in Dadri (U.P) by a mob driven by a rumour that he had stored or consumed beef. It has now turned out that the meat was not of cow but of goat’s. In another bizarre incident the Shiv Sena forced the cancellation of a concert by noted Pakistani ghazal singer Ghulam Ali who was scheduled to perform in Mumbai as a tribute to Jagjit Singh on his fourth death anniversary. Both acts are reprehensible and need to be dealt with iron hands and culprits brought to book. Even President Pranab Mukherjee, without mentioning Dadri incident, condemned the gruesome murder. He spoke feelingly of the need to defend India’s “core civilization values” of plurality and tolerance that “keeps us together”.

Finance Ministers of 188 member-countries at the IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings in Lima (Peru) on October 9-10 grappled with a weakened world economy, fall in trade volumes, volatile financial markets and China's sharp slowdown and currency devaluation with serious global repercussions.

Mumbai and Delhi are the sanctum sanctorum of the Indian Union’s anglicized, privileged cool set. Apparently, these two urban areas represent that highest form of the cosmopolitan ethos with a ‘desi’ touch. That ethos also is a stand-in for a celebratory form of atomized individualism (whose boring moments are ‘artistically’ expressed as urban ennui) and is characterized by a near-complete alienation from the street and the social life of real people (for example, people who know the name and address of their local councilor). These are precisely the kind of cities where ‘illegal’ settlements of the urban poor can be removed and political processions are reduced to a ‘traffic problem’. Hence, it is not surprising that beef ban unites these two cities in their apartheid-based cosmopolitanism and that a general meat ban can be promulgated in Mumbai and Gurgaon. The powerful classes of such cities have always made separate private provisions for themselves and hence only rarely anything public impinges of their lives. Thankfully, most urban areas of the subcontinent are not so completely dominated by such classes.

The world leaders have just concluded adopting 17 Sustainable Development Goals with 169 targets with an ambitious intention of alleviating global poverty by 2030. But there are miles to go before the actual implementations are seen on the ground. The statisticians from different countries are expected to meet in April next year to fix the indicators for the targets. One laudable thing is that unlike the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which was rather imposed by the developed world keeping in view their strategy for disbursing aid at their own whims and designs, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were worked out with the participation of all and the views of the civil society was solicited in the Open Working Group of the UN General Assembly (UNGA).

No one thought that beef and meat ban or reservation would become main poll issues in Bihar but now the major political parties are battling with these two contentious issues while development – the mantra of both Prime Minister Modi and chief minister Nitish Kumar- have gone to the background. The cow, revered by the Hindus, has now been turned into a political weapon.

Nothing could underline the decline of the political institution and to what extent the political discourse has lost its relevance in the country than the morally despicable and repulsive words and phrases being used by our revered leaders during the campaigning for Bihar assembly. The leaders in their wisdom use base language for enticing the audience, entertaining their supporters and cadres. Nevertheless the question arises why the politicians resort to such language? Do they think the people appreciate such remarks and barbs?