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..
- Art 370 is being debated along with Art 35 regarding Kashmir
- Even Congress govts are literally talking of the cow
- Many secular political leaders are suddenly discovering that India has a significant number of Hindus
- Talking of Nationalism, Patriotism, the Flag, the National Anthem are no longer something that people do in hushed whispers.
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
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.
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.
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
Comments
I have a similar (albeit tangential to yours) perspective on the situation India is in. I've held that we needed the Congress in the early years because their (socialistic) perspectives helped us to forge the definition of what was India and Indianness in the early years.
In '47 we were some 7000 (or whatever) independent tribes tossed together in one geographic location. Welding them together required supporting the minorities, the marginalized, discussing and building a common narrative. The net gain was that we now have a common agreement, a covenant if you will of what/who constitutes an Indian (that aligns with our constitution) and that is an extremely powerful covenant. The down side is that we did not focus on the doing, the acting with the result that India grew very, very slowly (the Hindu rate of growth) and so we are behind (at the moment).
It is Modi who came and said that it is time to ACT (if you see, he's preserved the covenants we have) which is where all the action / results of his Govt. is coming out of. The Cong. on the other hand have seen the power of this welding together over the past and want to continue the same journey (and this is the core difference between what RaGa is saying vs what Modi is saying) but the marginal returns have been reducing over time (once there is an agreement, there is lesser need to build on it, emphasize it) with the result that they are becoming less relevant.
But (like I said) this was a very powerful agreement that we've built amongst us because it will stand by us through thick and thin, good times and bad and is a very powerful bedrock to our journey in the years ahead. Contrast this with the Chinese. The Chinese decided that it was more important to act and so they focused on DOING which is where their country leaped ahead of us economically. However the true strength of the society, the ability to hang together will come out in dark times. I suspect their foundations are not as strong as ours and the impact of bad times will hit them far worse than it will hit us.
In the long road, I suspect we have a more sustainable chance of growing longer and far beyond them. Let's not forget it is going to be India vs China in the far future - the Chinese are not an inclusive race so the versus IS going to always be there.