Time and Temporalizing Tactics II

The Chapter shows how a selective past is conjured to feed into, supplant the present of ‘Emerging India’. In this ordering of time, the simultaneity of breaking and bridging with a heritagized selective past is kept alive. The second section traces how the reforms are embedded in a temporal order, which is presented as something pre-ordained, even destined for India, how the speakers naturalize a particular sequence of events, which legitimize the change that the reforms embody as something pre-determined, even an act of providence. The third section focuses on the temporalizing tactics of the current Prime Minister Narendra Modi starting with the suggestive slogan Achche Din aane wale hain (Good Times/days are about to arrive) which hallmarked his electoral campaign of 2014. The slogan not only aptly captures the temporalizing mood of the campaign for the cause of electoral victory but its popularity also indicates how Modi himself became a popular brand through it, the prime mover and sole guarantor of good times.