It is unfortunate that it has become the ‘in’ thing to pick holes in whatever the Narendra Modi government does or does not do on any front. No one denies that there is a perceptible gap between the promises and performance of the BJP government at the Centre but it is hardly prudent to lose sight of some of the good things that are happening in the country and to consequently slip into a mood of defeatism.
It is true that some of the promises that the NDA made before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections were rash and incredible and needed to have never been made. That this contributed to the general atmosphere of gloom and doom when the people found that there was no El Dorado waiting for them under NDA rule is a hard reality. But having hounded the Central government for nearly a year and a half, it is time we view things dispassionately.
That the elite in the country is more disillusioned with Modi rule than the common man is borne out by the fact that the BJP has turned the tables on the principal opposition parties in the country in most of the elections to State assemblies in recent months. The erstwhile ruling party, the Congress, has repeatedly sabotaged all efforts at economic reforms brazenly seeking shelter under the ruse that the BJP had done the same when it was in the opposition.
While no brief need be held for the BJP, it cannot be denied that that was not all there was to the ‘policy paralysis’ that gripped the country under UPA rule. The NDA did put spokes in the Congress wheel repeatedly and that contributed to slowing the economy down but that was not all there was to the pathetic performance of the UPA government.
The shocking indecision of the Manmohan Singh government on policy issues had a lot to do with the spinelessness of Dr Singh and the disproportionate power wielded by party president Sonia Gandhi as an extra-constitutional authority. It was common knowledge that Dr Singh was a puppet on a string while Mrs Gandhi called all the shots.
IT is easy to ridicule the Prime Minister for the frequent overseas trips he has been taking since he assumed office. Many people make it sound as though these are essentially pleasure trips and reflect his love for foreign travel. For a man who works 18 hours a day and who is so deeply committed to the country’s onward march, this is grossly unfair.
The widespread public disgust was also the result of spiralling prices which hit the common man hard. Public memory is short and a lot of us consider today’s inflation excessive but had the runaway inflation of the later years of UP’s rule continued, the effect on people at large would have been far more severe. Today, the spiral in prices is confined to a handful of items while by and large there is better control over prices.
The worst record of the Manmohan Singh government, however, was in controlling corruption which permeated every walk of life. There was a surfeit of scams and under a government that was hugely complicit and lacking control, there was corruption in virtually every department of the government.
Whatever one may say about the Modi government, one must give credit to it that corruption is much less than it was under the erstwhile Congress regime. It is no small achievement that no major scam has been unravelled by the media or the opposition in the 17 months that the Modi government has been in office despite an ever-vigilant media which is hungry for sensational news in the face of intense competition. The Lalit Modi issue which grabbed headlines for weeks on end singeing External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje Scindia in the process was more an issue of improprieties than of corruption. The Congress clearly went for the overkill, failing to sustain the campaign in the face of governmental obduracy.
The credibility of the Congress took a beating in the face of an exaggerated purveying of the message and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity did not nosedive among the people as was expected though there was an undoubted erosion from the peak that it had achieved before the Lok Sabha elections.
It is easy to ridicule the Prime Minister for the frequent overseas trips he has been taking since he assumed office. Many people make it sound as though these are essentially pleasure trips and reflect his love for foreign travel. For a man who works 18 hours a day and who is so deeply committed to the country’s onward march, this is grossly unfair.
The tangible gains from Modi’s trips may not be so apparent over the short run but there can be little doubt that in the longer term they will show up their substantial benefits for the country. Already, it has emerged that India is now the destination that attracts the highest foreign direct investment. It is also the fastest growing economy in the world after the Chinese economy slowed down and its markets crashed. The efforts to cut red tape and nepotism are beginning to yield fruit. The bureaucracy is showing greater commitment to work than it did during Congress rule due to a fear factor.
The ‘ease of doing business’ which globally ranked India an abysmal 142 among 189 countries has climbed up 12 positions to 130, according to the World Bank and for this the Bank’s Director has praised Prime Minister Modi in no uncertain terms.
Doubtlessly, there are huge tasks ahead for the Modi government. The country’s armed forces are unhappy that the One Rank One Pension that the government accepted in principle has not been rolled out in the manner they envisaged. The judiciary is peeved that the National Judicial Appointments Commission which the government brought in through an Act of Parliament and which has been struck down by the Supreme Court was an attempt to clip their wings and to ensure the supremacy of Parliament.
All in all, there is a groundswell of negativity which does not bode well for the country. The government surely needs to pull up its socks but the people too need to judge it through less rigid standards.
