As the Modi Sarkar comes close to completing two years in office, there is news that nearly 49 percent of the people surveyed find ‘no change’ and another 15 percent believe that the situation has actually worsened under his rule. But the good news continues for Modi on the personal front as 62 percent liked his performance for the first two years, and another 70 percent want him to continue beyond his first five years. Well, surveys are a poor replacement for an actual poll, but they serve the limited objective of indicating the direction in which the wind is blowing.
The survey in a nutshell tells us that when it comes to delivering on its promise the Modi Sarkar has let down the bulk of the people – 64 percent, but they are still living on that eternal quality – hope – and expect the prime minister to do better. The other inevitable message is that when it comes to the top leadership post in the country, the people do not see any alternative to Modi.
The last week also showed an important facet of the Modi Sarkar. Its gross inability to forge a political consensus on all critical issues and move ahead with the task of governance is now a well-entrenched part of its political character. But last week, it took its antagonism against the Congress and its president Sonia Gandhi a step further. It riled the opposition with unsubstantiated charges and innuendoes. A democratic system is always based on a structure of checks and balances, and even the mighty president of the United States of America has to work with his rival political party. The same holds true for the Indian prime minister. He cannot simply smother the opposition. Fighting political battles is quite different from literally ignoring the opposition and behaving as if it does not exist. The suggestions that have been emanating from union finance minister Arun Jaitley about the role of the Rajya Sabha are all aimed at simply smothering the opposition, when the proper democratic course is to resolve the differences through dialogue and debate. This indeed, has been the process through which a political consensus has been built around the reform agenda since 1991 as no government had a majority in both houses and even one house at times.
At a different level, the prime minister’s desire to have a Congress Mukt Bharat is quite all right as a political objective, in so far as he wants that the BJP should rule all the state governments as well, but can this be taken to all possible extremes in the literal sense of the term? Political parties, howsoever diminished electorally do fight back, and no one can assert with any amount of certainty that these would not come back to power. We saw an example of this phenomena in Bihar state assembly elections last year. The JD (U)-RJD-Congress alliance did come back to defeat the NDA combine after losing heavily in the Lok Sabha elections a year ago.
Corruption in high places has been an endemic crisis of the system. The Rs 3500 crore AgustaWestland VVIP chopper deal is just the latest example. It has to be appreciated that in any major government contract (or for that matter even in deals) a certain percentage depending on the industry norms is set aside for those facilitating the deal. To believe that this norm would change with the change in any government is to simply delude oneself. Make no mistake this has been happening ever since the era of modern governments began, and would continue for all times to come. There is nothing surprising that the names of air force officials and those from the ministry of defence have figured in the context of the Agusta chopper deal.
But the real challenge and the opportunity for prime minister Modi lies in proving that the money did find its way to Congress president Sonia Gandhi. Mere suggestions and innuendoes would not do. Nor would the BJP’s cause be helped by demanding answers from the Congress president. Indeed, the right course would be to openly accept the Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad’s challenge to complete the probe within the next two months and lay all the details on the floor of the house when the parliament meets for the monsoon session.
It should be remembered that corruption like murder is not a charge that can be driven home by vague assertions. Just as you must prove the murder charge by evidence regarding the time, the weapon and the motive-through incontrovertible evidence, the same holds true for corruption. It is axiomatic that your case falls flat if you do not have the proof, and then the entire corruption debate degenerates into a meaningless slugfest. This has been routinely happening in our country.
The primary reason for this situation is that for the BJP corruption has been a very facile issue to target the Congress. The political rhetoric is taken to such a pitch that material aspects like finding the evidence get relegated to the background and the party manages to buttress the perception that the Congress is corrupt. In the popular lexicon, just as the BJP is communal, the Congress is corrupt. Then the reality may be otherwise, it simply does not matter. The BJP may have a long list of corruption scandals, and the Congress may be utterly communal at times, nothing changes the perception.
In the Agusta chopper deal, that was cancelled during the fading days of the UPA tenure, it beats logic that a timid politician like A K Antony would cancel any deal in which the party bigwigs have taken money. Not only would he not cancel the deal, he would also not order a CBI enquiry and take the matter to the Milan court. He would have preferred to wait till the elections were over and left the matter for the next government. It is now up to prime minister Modi to prove that Antony did not cancel the deal with clean hands.
