When critical evaluation is backed by objectivity, there is bound to be credibility. It’s always expected of a good critic to call a spade a spade. But a spade, in this context, need not always carry a negative connotation though the idiom, over the years, has been more often than not used to denote a certain degree of deleterious aggression.
The Modi government has completed one year in office and all of India has been burning more than the midnight oil to come up with an evaluation report. Newspapers, magazines, television channels, pollsters, the party circuit and, of course, politicians of all hues have nothing else to discuss but Modi. It is a fact that Narendra Modi evokes strong emotions. The pendulum swings all the way to the extremes. The annual reports presented by various stakeholders and neutral observers are a true reflection of these swings.
No marks for guessing who gave Modi a fat zero in everything that he has done (or not done) over the past 365 days. The same goes for those who awarded a perfect ten to Modi. The truth, as always, is neither so black nor so white but lies in the many shades of grey in between.
Rahul Gandhi was the leader of the ‘Zero’ brigade. But Modi’s cabinet colleague Nitin Gadkari laughed it off saying he would not take anything said by the Gandhi scion seriously because, like a child learning to walk, Rahul is just about learning to speak and so may say things that have no relevance. Gadkari however stopped short of giving marks to Modi, a job that was faithfully carried out by the prime minister’s various other minions both inside and outside the cabinet. Two other Congressmen - Kapil Sibal and Manish Tewari - crawled out of the woodwork, as it were, and defended Rahul with their personal zeroes for the prime minister.
But the problem with these critics/supporters is that their loyalty to their respective parties and their supreme leaders blinds them to ground realities. In the first year of a five-year reign this wouldn’t matter much to the ruling dispensation especially if it enjoys the kind of parliamentary majority that Modi does. Unless something very unforeseen and unexpected takes place, the BJP is here to stay for four more years.
But for the opposition, especially an emaciated one like the present Congress Party, climbing back into the voters’ minds is a humongous job that calls for a high degree of patience and diligence on a daily basis. And it is here that credibility counts more than anything else in all its actions.
It is generally agreed that Modi has done a remarkable job of taking India to the world. Of the 365 days he has been in office, Modi spent 51 days abroad, visiting 17 countries. (Manmohan Singh’s figures for the same period were 47 and 12.) He has had four meetings with Chinese supremo Xi Jinping (at BRICS in Brazil, at G20 in Australia and two one-on-ones in India and China). He has met President Obama three times already and is on a first name basis not just with “my friend Barack” but with a host of presidents and prime ministers across the globe. Obama wrote a special signed piece for Time magazine praising Modi while Australian Prime Minister Anthony ‘Tony’ Abbott said “Narendra and I” are “like brothers”. Japanese Prime Minister follows only three people on Twitter - his wife Akie Abe, Japanese journalist Naoki Inose and, you guessed it, Narendra Modi.
OK, these are personal matters, but then again such personal rapport can only help forge better ties with other countries. If Modi has visited these 17 countries, he has also brought pledges of large-scale investments from them. And where he was not exactly looking for investments, he was aiming at strategic relations. For example, Modi’s first visit after becoming prime minister was not to any of the capitalist, developed nations but to neighbouring Bhutan. It was also the first ever by an Indian prime minister. Imagine Bhutan is not even a hop and a jump from Delhi but no prime minister had thought of going over there till June 2014!
The land boundary agreement with Bangladesh, although a bequest of the Congress regime which was duly acknowledged by Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj in parliament, has raised Modi’s stock not just with that neighbour but closer home with states like West Bengal and Assam. Although strictly for humanitarian reasons, Modi’s all-out help to Nepal in its hour of need has brought that Himalayan country that much closer to India. New Delhi’s effort to evacuate Indians from war-torn Yemen was so stupendous that even countries like the US sought its help to get its own nationals out to safety.
To sum up, the India story has changed, especially when viewed from abroad. And much of that change is for the better.
To have achieved so much in just one year is remarkable but if you ask Congress leaders all they would do is turn around and ask: So where is Modi’s diplomatic skills vis-à-vis Pakistan? Congress ruled India for 58 years and where did it take Indo-Pak relations? But that is not its concern. So, for the Congress, Modi’s foreign policy is a big fat zero.
How’s that for objectivity and credibility? If, on the other hand, had the Congress conceded at least some, if not all, of Modi’s initiatives abroad, its criticism of the prime minister on many other fronts would have been more credible. And in fact there indeed are several fronts on which Modi has come up short. Take, for instance, Modi’s Law Minister Sadananda Gowda was moved out of railways as he was found wanting there but in law he has been as much a non-performer. Hundreds of archaic laws still hold sway in day-to-day administration. Despite making much noise, there is precious little being done to get these out of the way.
Smriti Irani at the helm of human resources development has made news for the all wrong reasons. Reports of her arrogant behaviour with her subordinates are many. She is equally brash with distinguished academicians and heads of all-important IITs, so much so that several of them have put in their papers. In her enthusiasm to please her boss, she wanted all schoolchildren to compulsorily listen to Modi’s speeches on radio. And to keep her mentors in the RSS happy she has embarked on a steady programme of introducing Hindu curriculum in schools across the country. Her decision to drop German as a third language from federally-run schools even threatened to become a diplomatic incident with Berlin before Modi intervened. India’s higher education lags way behind international standards but Irani seems least concerned.
These are areas where the Congress could have thrown mud at Modi and it would have stuck. Instead it engaged the government in a war of words over attacks on minorities - which in almost all cases turned out to be the handiwork of petty criminals - and farmer suicides for which the Congress, more than the BJP, is responsible, having been at the helm for ten years at a stretch till a year ago.
India’s grand old party has lost credibility both as a ruling entity and as opposition. If it has to re-emerge as a strong national alternative, it will have to rethink its strategies, chief of which would be to be truthful in what it says. Any amount meditative/introspective absence by Rahul Gandhi is not going to help if he does not get this most basic thing right.
Meanwhile, Modi is planning his next foreign visit - this time to the central Asian republics.
Modi keen to get Jayalalithaa on board
Why is Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah ambivalent about appealing against the state high court’s verdict acquitting Jayalalithaa in the disproportionate assets case? And why is the BJP, which is in the opposition in Bengaluru, not really pressing the issue which it would otherwise have done in any other case?
The answer perhaps lies in parliament, or precisely the Rajya Sabha. With 11 members in the upper house Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK can influence the outcomes of major bills like the GST and land acquisition. Prime Minister Modi is desperate to cobble up the numbers so that he can avoid a joint session to get his way through.
With parties like the Biju Janata Dal, the Samajwadi Party and even the Trinamool Congress finally coming around to see government’s point, Modi is keen to get Jayalalithaa on board as well. On the other side the Congress is equally intense in its campaign to stop Modi because it needs one such big ticket victory in parliament to rejuvenate its cadres.
Siddaramaiah is reportedly considering the advice of former prime minister Deve Gowda who has told him not to appeal for fear of a violent backlash from the Tamils living in Bengaluru. But that is a specious argument. Can justice be buried on the whim and fancy of a section of the population?
Meanwhile the more important question is, what will happen to Jayalalithaa if the appeal - either by the state government or by Subramanian Swami, the original petitioner – is accepted by the Supreme Court? Will she have to resign again and put the state back in limbo?
