In the nation’s tryst with destiny, a unique Indian experiment is being tested in the three months since the General Election. In Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India has found a leader who continually mirrors the subcontinent’s civilisational dialectics.
If the commentariat impatient for a fresh neo-liberal thrust touted the Prime Minister as India’s Margaret Thatcher, he dispelled the notion by choosing to professionalise and not withdraw the State or public-sponsored programmes designed with a spirit of redistributive justice.
The Food Security Act will continue as will the MGNREGA (the rural job scheme) with a view to linking it to asset creation — another instance of the Prime Minister, a self-confessed ‘Pradhan Sevak’, professionalising existing structures instead of dismantling them.
India’s latest stand at the World Trade Organisation challenges the global financial and trading systems to accommodate the needs of the country’s farmers and the poor for food self-sufficiency in the same breath as the Prime Minister invites the world to come and “make in India”. But this invitation is as much for the global giants as for the small manufacturers in Surat, Tirupur, Chakan or Baddi who Modi has prompted to build the brand called ‘made in India’. Idealism and nation-building replace cynicism in the political arena when the country’s highest executive combines the discourse on manufacturing and employment with hygiene, of the girl child’s rights, schools and toilets. With an authority that only a mass leader can exert over his people, he admonishes parents for not being as strict with their sons as they are with their daughters.
As he breaks the mould and challenges stereotypes on the policy front, a quiet sense of purpose replaces the drift that had hitherto come to symbolise governance in India. In every sphere of Indian democracy – the legislature, executive and the judiciary – there is an intangible acknowledgement that accountability is no longer an alien concept. That legitimate political power of a people’s leader has once again come to rest in the South Block that houses the Prime Minister’s Office. No other denizen of any address in Lutyen’s Delhi, not even the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s headquarters at 11 Ashoka Road, is in a position to either interfere or undermine the supremacy of the first among equals in the government. The ministers publicly admit that while the Prime Minster gives them the freedom to function in their individual style, there is a clear brief and a follow-up. If a policy measure has been discussed or work assigned, the ministers are certain that after a reasonable period, they will be asked for a progress report. The orientation of the new Government is a departure from status quo to delivery and results. Most of all, the Prime Minister imparts a new gravitas and political authority to the highest office. The dithering and the dilemmas give way to a clear sense of direction.
This is a Government reflecting the aspirations of subaltern India; not from the position of benevolent feudalism that had subtly come to dominate policy-making over the years, but from the perspective of a genuine ‘outsider’ to Delhi’s elite. Small town, vernacular India has found a voice in a leader who takes pride in his humble origins.
In the practice of politics, too, this newfound confidence breaks the monopoly of caste leaders over their constituencies.
The promise of social justice in post-Mandal politics which had degenerated into personality cults or family fiefdoms, especially in the Hindi heartland, is now being hastily airbrushed. In the recently concluded by-elections in the politically critical state of Bihar, the convergence of the former Janata family is a testimony to how seriously the caste leaders view the rise of a young India’s longing for new politics.
Gujarat modelGood governance and development with a proven track record in Gujarat have an unfailing traction in moffusil towns where 24-hour electricity is still a distant dream, roads are non-existent and good education is an oxymoron.
The weight of these expectations is expressly felt and seen in the intangibles – the quiet determination, a return of political gravitas to the PMO, the stemming of the tide of policy paralysis, a sense of purpose and direction. There is no haste of tardiness in the navigation of the new ship.
The Government is circumspect yet firm in paving the way for labour reforms, power sector reforms, improving investor climate while pushing the welfare schemes, announcing the ambitious financial inclusion plan in the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojna within days of the promise made in the PM’s Independence Day speech.
The inertia of decades will not be shaken in a matter of months. But in the first 100 days, it is not just the intent and purpose but a direction is clearly visible.
In the climate of cynicism that has enveloped India for some decades, achche din may still take a while to arrive. But a beginning has decidedly been made.