<b>Shekhar Gupta:</b> Catch-23 Economics, Catch-24 Politics

Caught between wanting to be an ideal swayamsevak like Mohan Bhagwat, and a moderniser like Mr Vajpayee, Narendra Modi could become an Indira-like statist

Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 Lieutenant Milo Minderbinder earned his fame trading with himself in a way that everybody involved in the circular transaction made a profit, which, ultimately, came out of the government’s pocket. The reason he became an enduring brand ambassador of cynical capitalism is precisely because nothing mattered to him except profit for his company (called the Syndicate). He always made a profit, usually buying up the entire supplies of some commodity: Eggs, tomatoes in a village, selling at a monopoly price to his own unit.

But once he slipped up when he bought the entire stock of Egyptian cotton