The Advent Of Modi Heralds Prosperity For India

The Advent Of Modi Heralds Prosperity For India

 Picking himself up by the bootstraps is a life-long habit for Narendra Modi from his early days in Vadnagar. He has come from poor boy to the prime ministership on the strength of his will, supreme administrative ability, and charisma. Narendra Modi’s great and proven skill is in generating a tremendous output from whatever present circumstances he has been given to work with.

In his first parliamentary address, he averred that he was an optimist and did not understand hopelessness. He saw his water glass as half full of water and half full of air. He declared that his government would deliver. There is absolutely no cause to disbelieve him. This, after all is his strongest suit.

Modi had actually better be believed; his followers and admirers know it, and his detractors are destined to  gag on their  ongoing disbelief. It is their misfortune to not recognize a man of destiny when he comes amongst them and instead revile him with filthy name-calling and rancour.

Modi’s recent election campaign took all the tools available to his competition, melded them together to great and potent effect, 3D campaigning, three aircraft movements, relentless and soaring oratory, humour, energy, earthiness, that in the end, produced a gob-smacking result.

So to bring in economic prosperity, Modi cannot first  go in for a long-winded overhaul and modernization of the Government machinery if he is not to squander his honeymoon period and give his craven and beaten enemies a chance to get back into the fight.

He must make soaring,  all encompassing, visionary, economy boosting announcements, days after being sworn in on the 26^th    in front of 3,000 invited guests, and weeks before his finance minister presents the first of five Modi Raj budgets to start with.

This coming budget too must be like no other this country has seen, less on the waffle and loaded with benefit and content. Modi must suppress spirit dampening caution and cast his fate and gauntlet on the altar of massive progress. Boldness has always rewarded Modi and this he must not forget.

The over-riding reason that Modii has won his spectacular victory is because millions of people bought into his exciting message of ‘vikas’ and ‘paribartan’ and ‘development’. They ignored the warning of vote bank politicos and put their faith in a man who is known to do what he promises. And he was believed because of the impressive results obtained over three successive terms in Gujarat.

BJP with its old Hindutva line and its unimaginative leadership after the departure of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, would have been restricted to numbers that would have made even a coalition government difficult, if not impossible to put together, as in 2004 and 2009.

But this time, despite strenuous efforts on the part of Congress, SP, BSP and TMC and the masses of Left-Liberals to brand Modi ‘communal’, and even a ‘butcher’, the voting public was not convinced. And this includes many Muslims, Christians, Dalits and others who saw the unfairness of not counting 1984, the Assam carnage, the Muzaffarnagar riots, and at least a dozen other major atrocities under Congress stewardship. They voted for him and made up his spectacular numbers.  

But Modi cannot let himself dawdle on the delivery. Sorting out our bloated government can wait. It will in any case not be easy to see what efficiencies even radical surgeries will engender, till months, even years, go by.

In the aftermath of Modi’s landslide win, the creaky   and conventional advice givers are asking for an urgent reorganization and consolidation of ministries towards efficiency; others are asking for tax breaks, reduction of interest rates, stimulus packages; the open letter writers are urging inclusiveness and a care for the poor and disadvantaged.

At least this last lot of petitioners are an improvement on the quixotic international pleas from eminent if short-sighted worthies of Indian origin asking for the public to ‘stop Modi’.

These people,  probably easily flattered by their tenuous toe-holds in the West, are the ultimate, if pathetic Uncle Toms given plentifully to every dispensation. Even India in imperial times was, after all, run by the might of bought out Indian muscle, positioned most ironically, against fellow Indians.

So post-election, desperately under-read and obscure, JNU educated, closet Communist writers, like Pankaj Mishra, a pal of both anarchist Arundhati Roy and wily Sonia loyalist Vinod Mehta, make bold to call Modi a ‘mass murderer’ in the Leftist  Guardian of the UK. This trio even thinks Kashmir should have its Pakistani crafted referendum, and that Maoists are aggrieved people who have been badly done by the Indian state.  

Even more pessimistic types are suggesting that it won’t be easy for Modi to deliver quick results in any direction, given the sorry state of the economy, and indeed the polity too. But these people are perversely pleased that it is going to be difficult for Modi, and secretly happy that Congress has left him such a mess to work with.

But it must be said to these many cooks wanting to dish up the community-made broth, reorganization, political rhetoric on caring for the poor, or tinkering with taxes or stimulus is not going to do the trick. This country has been sliding down for too long to be satisfied with hedge trimming and good intentions.

What Modi has to unleash, and very quickly at that, is a bold new world of economic reforms designed to catapult the country forward and astonish the world for its vision and reach.

(914 words)

May 22^nd, 2014

Gautam Mukherjee