Jab Bharat Met India: Time For Three Big Moves

Jab Bharat Met India: Time For Three Big Moves

The continuity of Modi 2.0 belies the profound changes to come. The wisdom of the electorate has caused every second person out of over 660 million  who went to the hustings, to vote this government into power for a second term.

But now, what is needed, while the Opposition is in disarray after the thumping, almost two-thirds victory in the Lok Sabha, is a flurry of major initiatives.

The traditional political honeymoon period does not last more than a 100 days. In 2014, the early days were squandered. Bold moves were kept waiting till half way through the term, when the Opposition, such as it was, was in full flow.

And it was noisy enough to derail most of the parliamentary sessions, and  part of the legislative agenda too. Not having enough strength in the Rajya Sabha was also a  major handicap.

With a dominant Bharat flavoured team ensconced in the political leadership now, many of the erstwhile nods across the aisle and pulling of punches is expected to be done away with. Will this government soon put corrupt but high profile Congress politicians in jail as promised?

All the short term political calculations ought to be confident now. They should be based on an expected long stretch of NDA governments. The electorate has demonstrably changed. It has accepted the priorities of nationalism, security and development an d given Narendra Modi a mandate for  action. It wants to see substantial growth, and is ready for radical change to achieve it.

But this groundswell of support can only be guaranteed by a series of bold and decisive moves that puts paid to the hesitations and accommodations of the past.

At least three big moves in the first 100 days of Modi 2.0 are called for. They will also go a long way to win the important Assembly elections coming up thereafter in October.

These could be a pathbreaking  set of additions to the interim budget involving a   slashing of low yielding taxes such as the capital gains provisions, come July. 

The full budget must kickstart a faltering economy  by stimulating investment. It must put the fear of ruin into financial defaulters.

Article 35A must be revoked by presidential decree, making it possible for all Indians to live in, own land and property, invest, and vote in J&K.

This will not go down well with Nitish Kumar, who has issued his warnings against the move. But in the first 100 days, a new government walks on water and he can probably be mollified.

The third big move could be the commencement of the Ram Mandir construction in Ayodhya, using adjacent land outside the 2.77 acres that is strictly sub-judice. This would cut through the clutter, and prevent the judiciary holding the aspirations of millions to ransom any longer.

Article 370, mostly moth-eaten already, can be held over for further dilution. It can also be abrogated at a future date, when the government secures sufficient strength in the Rajya Sabha.  

The futurescape presumes not only a win in Maharashtra and Haryana, but the clawing back of Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh at a minimum. The resultant controversies generated, can be outweighed in the first flush, by the overwhelming public approval.

Let us remember, despite relentless propaganda over several decades to the contrary, that Bharat  is congenitally Saffron. It is comfortable with old myths and new aspirations. Bharat, unlike the British construct called India, does not suffer from self-conscious embarrassment. It has no emotional linkage with colonially induced shame for all things Hindu.

The BJP/NDA has found Bharat under layers of imported ideologies and the dislocations of foreign conquest. It has fine-tuned it into success, twice in a row. Bharat’s true DNA is self-assured. It has successfully integrated, assimilated and amalgamated imported influences over the centuries.

Those who point to the Green and White in the Indian flag, must see the modified writing on the wall. These advocates don’t like being told that converted Muslims and Christians are also, congenitally, Hindu.  

But, constitutionally, the Greens and Whites are indeed deserving of space and an even playing field. But this, under Modi 2.0 means parity, not privilege. Can they, in turn, work up the “Viswas”?

On the other hand, which simple arithmetic can continue to equate 80 with 12 or 2 and proceed to show bias for the lesser numbers?

But then it wasn’t arithmetic, but a species of vote bank politics that tilted the board for much of the decades since independence . Now this may no longer be feasible. Nor is the sporadic violence being resorted to in frustration.  

But what happened to the erstwhile saviours of the minorities? How did they collapse like a house of cards? Is orthodox Marxism that glossed over caste and religion, and its Fabian Socialist Nehruvian derivative, the Libleft, truly obsolete now? Or is it just hibernating through a bitter winter?

Are those family owned regional political parties that abuse socialist tenets to bamboozle their adherents finally on the slippery slope to oblivion?  They will have their enormous ill-gotten wealth stolen from their followers to console themselves in retirement. But what becomes of their flock?

The voting public, including 12.2% of the Muslims, more aware now than ever before, have shifted away, this time probably for good. Only a massive dislocation, unimaginable at present, could turn the tables.

The electorate is now responding, not to the grievances of poverty, or the call of ideology, but simple new promises more to their liking.

These are about the benefits, not of freebies and handouts, but lasting economic progress. The voter knows there is a long road ahead to accomplishment. Still, given the honesty of purpose of a rare leader like Narendra Modi, they are willing to be supportive and patient.  

A reduction in corruption all around, and its non-existence at the top where the maximum power resides, is a brand new feeling. It has never been experienced before in India. Indeed, corruption was seen as a universal way of life.

Today, when Modi talks of the Indian economy overtaking that of Britain this year to make India No. 5 in the world, and a $5 trillion economy by 2023, the young voter knows that the whole country is going to gain from this. And that is not all- India will become the 3^rd biggest economy globally by 2030, only behind America and China.

This exalted vision beats the povertarianism and the corrupt growth for a few favoured people under previous regimes.  There is surety of purpose even as lives have not changed substantially yet. But there is no hesitation. No looking back  in anger.

(1, 104 words)

June 11, 2019

Gautam Mukherjee