2014 – 2019 – what has changed - Part 3

Disruption:

The one thing that Modi can be given full marks for is the disruption that his govt caused to a long established well entrenched ecosystem. Be it throwing out over 1500 high and mighty squatters from their Delhi bungalows, demanding accountability from NGO’s, making ministries and such offices out of bounds for media etc. they stirred up every retired hornets nest. Above all the secrecy and confidentiality that must be maintained in a govt had all but disappeared. It was like a nudist colony and many who hid all facts about themselves felt that govt being nude was cool. Thank god this changed. Now nothing leaks.

Bottom line is that life is no longer as before. You can argue, debate, scream and protest but life is disrupted. The famed Lutyens club is finding its foundations being shaken. Some would argue that a new Modi club is taking its place. I say that wherever there is space created something or somebody will fill it. The difference is whether it is exclusive or is it open to all. Lutyens was an exclusive preserve of an elite, a suit boot mentality crowd that wore khadi and fake jewellery to hide their Persian carpets, Swiss chalets and private jets with caviar. They said that they knew what is best for the brown man on the streets. The Modi club has gate crashed this party with a vengeance and it hurts – good.   

One of the side effects of this disruption politics is that many holy cows are now being debated, revisited. It may be a long time before these cows are brought home to rest but a beginning has indeed been made. Like for example..

1. Art 370 is being debated along with Art 35 regarding Kashmir 
2. Even Congress govts are literally talking of the cow
3. Many secular political leaders are suddenly discovering that India has a significant number of Hindus 
4. Talking of Nationalism, Patriotism, the Flag, the National Anthem are no longer something that people do in hushed whispers.

Corruption:

Corruption I always say is the oldest habit in mankind and a thousand years from now will still exist. But just as corruption thanks to privatisation and technology disappeared from having to bribe the lineman to make your phone work, corruption is disappearing in other places too. It is getting kicked into a corner.  Also, one must remember that corruption is one area where the level of ethics, honesty, integrity is the highest in expectations and its practice.

Recently visiting a small village govt office, which I have been visiting for 20 years found that unlike before, the walls are painted with every single work being done with the estimated cost of the same for the year. Now has corruption disappeared? NO. But when a citizen can guesstimate what a certain work can cost, sees what the estimate is he can draw his own conclusions. That automatically creates pressure on the system to not only scale down the level of corruption but also give answers to what is not done and the delay in the same. Early days yet since citizens may not exactly take up a stick to beat up the inefficient, but over time this pressure to perform and demand accountability will build up.

I have always said that in India nobody really cares too much about corruption as long as it’s a gap between supply and demand being filled with a price. That’s like tips given for a job well done to a hotel waiter or to a taxi driver or even an employee in a small org. Where this starts hurting is when the work doesn’t get done, the demand for money is beyond what can be called economically reasonable/affordable and as it had happened in the last decade – corruption in corruption. From this stand point the Modi govt has managed to reduce corruption hugely and brought in systems as mentioned above that over time if followed will bring changes that will make our society appear more honest. If one may go to the extent of saying – the biggest success of the Modi govt in combating corruption is that he has forced and brought back ethics and integrity in such deals.  

Citizen connect:

Talking to colleagues globally, sharing some personal experiences as one navigates the corridors of power be it as simple as an appointment to meet a officer or addressing a grievance or even addressing a problem, what astounded me was when they said that even within their own countries, touted as some of the most developed such systems didn’t exist. I am talking of how the highest in the land – Central cabinet ministers, officers – are leveraging social media to connect with citizens and make a difference in their lives. From as silly as a passenger on a train demanding milk for his baby to a very serious mother stranded in a terror zone abroad with a baby wanting to be rescued, this govt has leveraged SM to help people in ways that nobody thought possible in history. Sushma Swaraj, Suresh Prabhu, Piyush Goyal, Nirmala Sitharaman apart from Modi himself and many officers have raised the bar on performance and citizen connect that even old fuddy duddy political leaders have been forced to jump on this band wagon.

Women:

Most would think that reservation is the litmus test for women’s empowerment little realising that what women want is opportunity and inspiration without road blocks. In this sense when you have Sushma Swaraj as External Affairs Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman as Defence Minister there cannot be anything more inspiring and in opening doors to say that women can do anything. When you see a Smriti Irani and listen to her talk and to those who have interacted with her you realise that women’s empowerment comes from changes in the attitudes of men in general and especially the elite women. None of them can handle an assertive, confident, women who knows what she is talking about and is willing to stand up for herself. This unnerves them to the point that it soon turns to abuse, contempt etc. Just see the way the journalists, including women, talk and react to Smriti and you will know the difference between a woman empowered and a elite woman. 

When has any politician, let alone a Prime Minister stood on the ramparts of Red fort and in his Independence Day address asked a nation - Why do you not question your sons? Why do you not ask what they do, where they go? For those criticising on how much more needs to be done, I say – when it is attitudes that need to be changed, its takes generations to make that happen. So far nobody had asked this question. At least the first step has been taken.

Infrastructure:

The scale and breadth of work done in this area - be it roads, rivers, metro rail - the performance of Nitin Gadkari has been easily the best in this govt. Visiting Nagpur you could literally see growth of infra in real time. The scale of building roads has been so high that my friends tell me that even in the USA they haven't achieved such speed. Out of the box thinking meant that goods from South eastern India moved by sea to north western India easing the burden on the roads hugely and saving billions of dollars in the economy. Having fully loaded trucks drive on and off trains was another brilliant idea.  A non nonsense minister I am sure that given the scale of work done he did not do it himself or use ghosts and robots. So when I hear about jobs not being created, I wonder how all this infra gets created ? Is Gadkari the Indian Mandrake and is all this a illusion ? That's why they say that you have Plain Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics. 

Identification of a clear leader:

We can debate till the cows come home and criticise what is considered a personality cult in the Modi politics. Here is where the contradiction begins. Be it Rahul Gandhi and his family leading Congress for the last 7 decades, Yadav family owning the Samajwadi Party, Deve Gowda and family owning the Janata Dal as a private limited party of Grandfather, Sons, Daughter in-law, Grand Sons, Naveen Patnaik with BJD, Karunanidhi/Stalin with DMK, even a Arvind Kejriwal with the AAP every single party has a strong leader with a single face/family that decides everything and that is accepted.  Lets hark back to our favorite poster boys like Nehru and Indira. How many remember any names other than these leaders from their parties?

Globally a Trudeau of Canada, Trump of USA, May of UK, Angela of Germany, Putin of Russia and others get recognised as the leaders and the face of their countries.

Bill Gates of Microsoft, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Zuckerberg of Facebook, Ratan Tata of Tata's, Mukesh of Ambanis, Anand Mahindra of Mahindra or for that matter even religious leaders or even the family with a father or mother all have a stamp of their personality on their orgs and identified as the leader where the buck stops. We even celebrate the flamboyant  lifestyle of a Vijay Mallya and Mukesh Ambani as acceptable and desirable. Never mind the argument that they made their own money or built their business - the issue is about identifying someone as a leader and his persona. 

But somehow Modi as the leader of  BJP or as PM of India is a personality cult. It is not as if in other parties the cadre can do whatever they want or with a CM, the administration can do what they want. Just because India spent a crucial unique decade where you had a figurehead Manmohan Singh as PM but the real PM was someone else, this does not become normal and acceptable. Its also not as if one man can run the show, its always a team. Even MMS was felled by the shenanigans of his coalition who didn't respect or listen to him. 

Today be it coalition partners or party members, the expectation is that there can only be one leader and that is actually a law of nature. The old habit of the tail wagging the dog - is not normal - and is being questioned for its logic and as the desired way to do business.

End Note:

If one were to sum up the Modi govt one would say the following.

• Status quo disrupted.
• Citizen participation and involvement in India increased.
• Citizen involvement in politics, policy and even governance has increased.
• A new bar has been set for citizen service.
• India has upped the ante in dealing with Pakistan.
• Foreign policy reset in a new direction.
• Clearly identifiable leadership with decisiveness
• A willingness to take risks & politically risky decisions
• The bar of citizen expectations has been raised very high
• Defence and security of the country is back on the table as the priority
• Out of the box thinking