First anniversary of NDA

Kr Swarn Kishore Singh
In  2014, India  voted very strangely; a complete majority to a party which has several sobriquets which do not help while you are contesting elections pan-India.  This party was called as a Hindi-belt party, a party of Hindus only, a party of conservatives, a party of ultra-nationalist having a non-inclusive idea of India etc. Beating all the odds, BJP secured 282 out of the 543 seats in Lok Sabha; which is nothing less than magic. The people of India disgruntled with the misrule of congress rule of 10 years voted against it. The people of India were never so hyper-active in the election process ever before. They analysed and followed the parties; right from their manifestos to the statements of their leaders. A party which promised the era of misrule to be replaced with era of governance was voted in with a gigantic number to sit in Lok Sabha. This was the first time any single party had attained majority in Lok Sabha, after Rajiv Gandhi had effectuated the slide of sympathy in aftermath of Indira ji’s assassination in 1984. So India woke to dawn of decisive politics after 30 years of hiatus. This also proved that the democracy in our country has matured enough that power is not a fiefdom of a particular party or a family. We saw a guy from a very dejected stratum of the society reaching the highest political post in India. A chaiwala was made PM of such a vast country, this is the maturity of democracy.
On 26th May last year, when Modi ji was sworn-in as Prime Minister of India, a wave of optimism swept over the whole country. The whole country was looking forward for a new morning after the darkness of corruption, mis-governance and crony capitalism had engulfed India for last 10 years. The constraints and failure of UPA Government can be easily determined by the fact that India had to vote against Sri Lanka in UN resolution for human rights violation just because Mr. Karunanidhi pressurized Mr Manmohan Singh by threatening him for withdrawal of support from UPA. When the cheap regional politics starts interfering with the foreign policy, there cannot be anything worse than that.
But Modi played his cards very well with some intricate calculations by inviting heads of all the SAARC countries in his swearing-in ceremony. It was nothing less than a master-stroke. The team he formed also impressed a lot of political analysts as the only quality to be in the cabinet was merit and nothing else. The earlier intra-party rivalries were given a back seat when Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, Nitin Gadkari, Piyush Goyal, Dharmendra Pradhan etc. were anointed with some substantial posts in the cabinet. Arvind Subramanian, a critic of Modi but a renowned economist was roped in as Chief economic advisor. So the notion that Modi is a guy who is not known for inclusiveness is nothing but a farce. He is a guy who recognizes the talent and intellect; the political affiliations would are taken care of by his party cadre. Suresh Prabhu, a well-known chartered accountant & a banker was roped in as Railway minster just a day after he joined BJP; here also the only virtue he was holding was his intellect.
When the report card of NDA govt. is discussed there are a lot of things but the prominent ones are Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, Clean Ganga plan, Jan Dhan Yojna, & the GDP exceeding China’s growth.
India is a strange place where a boy and a girl cannot walk hand in hand in public but they can pee in public. Public space is a space where littering is virtually a birth right of every individual. We are known internationally for littering anywhere we live. Modi ji himself took to the streets with a broom in hand; encouraging people to stop littering in public and clear the garbage if it is found anywhere near. This scheme has no doubt made an impact on the psyche of the Indian masses and slowly it will reflect on the way the international community will apprehend us.
The issue of pollution of Ganga ji was alarming but the successive predecessor governments choose to ignore this issue but Modi ji. Actually he had himself performed a Ganga Aarti in Varanasi just a day after BJP was overwhelmingly voted into power. Modi ji even formed a separate ministry for that purpose and deputed this work to a very senior leader Uma ji Bharti, who is herself very determined for this job.
Then, Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojna is a mission whose basic tenet is financial inclusion of every Indian household. It is a very ambitious plan of Modi ji which is going to bear fruits in near future. Connecting almost 200 million households isn’t a joke. This scheme is roped in to give access to every household in India with the financial services like bank accounts, remittances, credit, insurance and lot more. This is nothing less than a revolution in itself.
And the most surprising one is 4th quarter GDP which shows India is growing at the rate of 7.5% eclipsing China’s rate. I was convinced that the business environment created by Modi ji is going to reflect positively on the economy of India but I had never anticipated that it will happen so quickly. This is only because corporate houses are pretty convinced that the Government is going to help in business if they are doing it the right way and the corporate also don’t need to go for any back-channelling as well. But it is not enough for some people as couple of days ago when I was having a chat with a very senior PDP leader, he came up with a scandalous statement stating that NDA has failed miserably and the figures of GDP are forged by them.
I remember the time when a noted industrialist Ratan Tata alleged that a Congress Minister for civil aviation demanded Rs. 15 crores for allowing permission to a joint venture between Tata group & Singapore airlines, which he denied to pay. And as a repercussion of denial to pay bribe the permission was also not granted.
Now the same joint venture has started working since January this year which is popularly known as VISTARA airlines. This can only happen only when there is no friction between corporate and government which is to be greased with the lubricant of bribe, it should be simply a merit based job.
Not only these big projects, this Government has worked on removing some fundamental lacunae which were prevalent in the functioning of our system. Let me cite an example, there was a requisite for every old person availing the privilege of old age pension to come up with a certificate which will certify him being alive. In a way before giving pension our government used humiliate our venerable senior citizens. Now this has been replaced by biometric system.
Another example is of attestation of our documents by some gazetted officer. The government in a way was conveying to us that it is not reposing on us with our documents and it needs a guy who happens to be their part who will certify its genuineness. So our Government which used to boast highly for its youth was not having any faith in them. This government just after coming into power immediately replaced the existing custom with a new thing called self-attestation, showing confidence in the youth of the country.
And few other high lights are; the land acquisition bill if passed will be a revolution in field of infrastructure in India. On the black money issue; some foreign banks have started naming the bank account holders for India to get them prosecuted, which had not happened for last 10 years. And the people who are asking for fulfilling of the promises should know one thing that the poll promises were made for 5 years and not for one year. One thing is sure that this guy has made us feel proud to be called as Indian when Indian Yoga is endorsed internationally and there is a world Yoga Day. Global intellectual hub Germany teaches Sanskrit courses in its universities is something which we can boast of. There has been a lot which has been done in this one year but still there is lot more yet to be accomplished. Have some patience folk!
(The author is an advocate working in Supreme Court of India & a political observer.)

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