After staying away, Baba Ramdev has emerged with some bizarre ideas. The Govt should be cautious
Narendra Modi’s stunning electoral victory has made his cheerleaders whoop with joy and rightly so, even some who remained oddly quiet this time around. But though there are still days to go before he is officially sworn in to his second term as Prime Minister, some of his cheerleaders have started to make some insane demands. Enter Baba Ramdev, who not only wants liquor sales banned but also wants to prevent the third child born to any family from having voting rights. There are others, some washed-up Bollywood celebrities, talking of imposing strange cultural values and a perverted version of Hinduism upon the country and others still, who demand the expulsion of foreign companies from India. Frankly, India can’t afford such crackpot ideas and the Prime Minister must let the slip from the suggestion box go straight into the wastepaper basket. While Modi’s social programmes have been a winner, it is only the immense faith of the Indian people in him that did not lead to demonetisation being a political disaster, and that idea was not far removed from some of the suggestions he has received this time.
The Prime Minister, his Cabinet and his senior bureaucrats should, however, be open to good ideas that have been well-thought out and which can be implemented effectively. There are a slew of problems that face the nation — there is a jobs crisis, there is an agrarian distress, there is an impending environmental disaster with air and water let alone the fact that India will suffer most from global warming. The healthcare and educational systems, which are broken, will need to be fixed and, of course, there is that eternally vexing problem with Pakistan. There are far too many problems for India and India’s decision-makers to deal with to get sidelined by crazy ideas and suggestions by those who claim to be fans and policy-setters by extension. The only fear though is that in the cacophony of bad ideas, a couple of them might actually slip through the filters and end up being implemented. Frankly, India does not have the time anymore to deal with the consequences of bad policies and ideas that get implemented. We have spent far too many decades debating stupid ideas, now is the time for decisive action on well-thought out ideas. Let the stupid ones die the natural deaths they deserve.