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Modi's dilemma: Will farmer protests be his Thatcher or Anna Hazare moment?

Modi can retreat like Manmohan Singh did under pressure from Anna movement, or push farm reforms in Thatcher style. His choice will determine national politics going ahead

Illustration by Binay Sinha
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Illustration by Binay Sinha

Shekhar Gupta
Has the farmers’ blockade of Delhi brought Narendra Modi to his Thatcher or Anna moment? It is up to Mr Modi to answer that question as India waits. It will write the course of India’s political economy, even electoral politics in years to come.

For clarity, a Thatcher moment would mean when a big, audacious and risky push for reform, which threatens established structures and entrenched vested interests brings an avalanche of opposition. That is what Margaret Thatcher faced with her radical shift to the economic Right. She locked horns with it, won, and became the Iron Lady. If she
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