| You are just listing newspaper headline items, I'm not sure how they are relevant when comparing BJP with the Republican Party. Let's actually talk about the policies and contrast. Some of the government schemes announced (and in progress) would make Modi right at home in a Bernie Sanders town hall meeting rather than being similar to the Republicans. Just off the top of my head: * Modi doubled down on Congress' NREGA scheme for providing guaranteed 100 days of pay to rural workers, whether they worked or not. * Introduced direct cash transfers to farmers. * Various farm loan waivers, especially some of the BJP-led state governments. * Announced a free healthcare under National Health Protection scheme. * Free housing, electricity and LPG gas connections for the poor. * Introduced long term capital gains tax in 2019. * Non-opposition to LGBT rights. I say "non-opposition" because they don't champion it like the Democrats, but are neutral since it's not a big ticket item in Indian society or politics. They passed a bill to prohibit discrimination against transgender persons last year (but there is some controversy surrounding it [1]). Again, a big no-no for the Republican Party. * Massive push for renewable energy - India doubled its renewable energy capacity in 3 years and on track to triple it in the following 4 years [2]. 47 GW (45% of all under development) coal projects was cancelled just in 2019 [3]. Good luck trying to get the climate change denying Republicans to do this. BJP's economic polices are as socialist as they come [4]. None of this would fly with the Republicans. That's how they are different - in actual policy positions. [1] - https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/12/04/7843987... [2] - https://energy.economictimes.indiatimes.com/energy-speak/new... [3] - https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/banking/financ... [4] - https://www.fairobserver.com/region/central_south_asia/india... |
However, they are no less socialist than anyone else. The only difference is Republican socialism flows upwards.
I mean, what could be more socialist than demanding a foreign company he sold and deciding which limited sets of companies is allowed to buy it. And we don’t even need to get into the outright bribery where they are demanding a cut of the transaction.
That behavior, even without the open corruption, is beyond what most major center left parties in the world are proposing now that Corbyn does not lead UK’s Labour.