Straitjacketing a crisis
Do you recall Jack Braganza from the popular Hindi movie Bobby (1973)? The affable patriarch wore his marriage suit while visiting the house of Raj, his daughter Bobby’s lover, to discuss their marriage proposal. The suit would not fit him after so many years, but that was perhaps all he had in the name of formal attire. In the movie, this scene created a comic sense. However, in real life it is not uncommon in millions of lower middle-class Indian families. The men use their wedding attire for decades, before they get a new one made, usually for their children’s marriages. The narratives that are being built around, arguably, a blunderous act of the incumbent president of the United States (POTUS), reminded me of this movie scene. Experts are trying to use an old jacket to fit the current scenario, based on their personal perceptions and linkages. Some people, harshly critical of the POTUS, have tried to fit the 1930 trade war triggered by the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act in 1930 – that wo...