As Prime Minister Modi and his Government complete their first year in office, there are questions on how far they have reached in realising their stated goals, often packaged in attractive one-liners. Time for sloganeering is gone; deliverables must begin to show
May 16, 2014, was supposed to be a red-letter day in Indian democracy. A day when ‘We the People’ had made a conscious choice. A choice where India was supposed to have moved beyond usual political pessimism towards an environment of hope. Right from the month of October 2013, when Mr Narendra Modi was chosen as Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate, the party machinery had played on the hope card. Much like US President Barack Obama, who announced, “Yes, we can”, to great effect, Mr Modi too created the slogan of “Achche din”. A year down the line, the legitimate question to raise is: Have achche din comeIJ Are we on course towards themIJ
The answers to the two questions really hold the story of the Modi sarkar in the last one year. Yes there has been a lot of sloganeering. look at the list: Swachch Abhiyan, Jan Dhan Yojana, Make in India. The list goes on. But have these campaigns really turned things around on the groundIJ In the Prime Minister’s own constituency of Varanasi, where I come from, beyond the cleaning of Assi Ghat, there are little visible signs of improvement. The temple town is still in crying need of a massive infrastructural overhaul.
Go to Government offices in the States, and you may find an altogether different story. After the first few weeks of photo-ops of Ministers using the broom, it seems the vigour is gone from that campaign. The Jan Dhan Yojana is a fascinating concept on paper. But already, many experts are questioning the financial viability of such a scheme. Make in India is a great idea in the long run, but for the time being, it only seems to be generating a lot of interest in a handful of Indian corporates wishing to enter the defence-manufacturing sector in the country.
Supporters of the Prime Minister may argue that politics isn’t a one-day match. It’s most certainly not a T20. But then, it is also equally true that it cannot be played like a Test match where the ultimate conclusion can be a tame draw even. That’s not why Mr Modi and his party got 282 seats in the lok Sabha. Statisticians argue that India’s GDP is growing at 7.4 per cent — amongst the fastest in the world.
Yet, speak to industrialists who matter and you sense a certain degree of unease, and a sense of being unsure. Why would that be if we have a Prime Minister who is being pilloried in Parliament for supposedly being a messiah for crony capitalistsIJ The issue at hand here is that, Mr Modi the Prime Minister is asking to be judged very differently from Modi the hard campaigner of 2014.
In those heady days of campaigning for the throne in 2014, he gave the impression that he was in control of the situation. That he had a solution for all the ills affecting the country. Yet in 2015, he has been unable to control the rabble-rousers within his party. He asks to be judged purely on economic parameters. But the middle class is still waiting for those elusive tax cuts or lower EMIs on home loans.
It’s almost as if the Prime Minister has identified a few low-hanging fruits and he wants the country to remember him for plucking those fruits and call those as achievements. But that’s not why he was given the staggering mandate. It was meant for him to bring in a sea change in the way politicians conducted business. let’s go back to the test of slogan-creation during the campaign.
“More crop per drop; “5-T Formula”; “Minimum Government, maximum governance” and look at the action. The land Bill is far from a settled issue and the party has suffered a huge perceptional hit. In non-BJP ruled States, the matter has already snowballed into a major crisis. On the question of ‘minimum Government’, the number of Ministers of State may be fewer in this Government, but the expenditure on the Government itself hasn’t really drastically reduced.
One must admit though, that the Prime Minister’s own popularity ratings still remain high. While the Delhi Assembly election debacle did certainly go a long way in raising questions about the ‘Modi wave’, it’s not as if the Prime Minister’s personal image has suffered. The difference appears to be that, in the campaignmode, Mr Modi sold himself as a whizkid. But since becoming the Prime Minister, he has become more of a Foreign Minister.
It must be underlined here that the Indian population today is restless and impatient. Youngsters don’t want to see a political model based on rhetoric. They want to make it absolutely clear that the model has to be based on political action. The final word is yet to be spoken on how Prime Minister Modi is being viewed on this front.
The Prime Minister’s performance must also be judged on the axiom of the Opposition’s performance. While 2014 was almost like a one-way show with the BJP dominating, the second half of the Budget Session in 2015 did give us an inkling of what could be in store for the remainder of this Government’s tenure. The fact that the Delhi debacle didn’t really lead to any serious introspection indicates that the party has chosen to look at it as an aberration.
While it did win the States of Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Haryana, it did lose successive by-polls in States where it fancied itself. There hasn’t really been a serious stock taking exercise yet within the party on the mistakes that it had made or may be making.
The comforting cushion it has is that the Opposition isn’t getting its act together. But the BJP and the Prime Minister can ill-afford to remain content with an Opposition which is still operating in fits and starts.
There is little doubt that Mr Modi is the tallest politician today and perhaps the most powerful leader of our time. But he must use the mandate to create an entirely new eco-system, moving well and truly beyond the shackles that a burgeoning bureaucracy had imposed upon India. He still has time to do course-corrections wherever necessary.
But the moment to do it is now. The more he and his Government dally, the less will be the chances of recovery from a debilitating knock that is always round the corner in a robust democracy the country has. Previous regimes have learnt it with telling effect in the past. Mr Modi has to study that history if he truly wants to make history in the long run.
(The writer is a senior television journalist)