J.L.Koul Jalali
The question why India needs a strong government for long time to come is directly linked to evolution of politics in the country after independence in 1947. Political development in India has lagged far behind after the country ushered in a democratic civilisational nation state in 1947 leaving behind over a millennium long foreign rule. People in general lacked political awareness even though India has had democratic traditions from ancient times. After independence positive, disciplined democratic political development lasted only for about two decades though this positiveness was pivoted round wrong political policies and attitudes. But subsequently even this flawed political development, still in nascent stages, instead of going up started to degenerate.
Regression started from state Assemblies with appearance of phenomenon of “Aya Rams” and “Gaya Rams”. In turn this phenomenon led to formal emergence of power politics,populism and vote bank politics. The rot subsequently spread to Centre too with negatively evolved multiparty and coalition political culture invading the central political structure itself particularly after entrenchment of dynastic rule. At that time politics was dominated by Congress party which had fought freedom struggle but had rapidly fallen from higher ideals of public service and nation making to a realm of rampant corruption,nepotism and politics of power and pelf.
Main causes responsible for this regression in our political development were lack of political awareness, corruption, dynastic ambitions,unreal bases to establish our national identity, wrong policies towards our neighbourhood and poor implementation of flawed developmental policies. India had just emerged from over twelve hundred years of foreign rule during which our ideals and civilisational values had been ruthlessly trampled under through repeated brutal aggressions and subsequently through divide and rule policies. Our civilisational pride,bravery and courage had been badly mauled and the country virtually reduced to a vast expanse of poor, pride less and illiterate people though with a rich legacy and tremendous suppressed latent potential.
Instead of adopting practical means for removal of widespread and deep rooted poverty,eradication of scourge of casteism through focused effective measures and programmes and restoration of Indianness in the light of historical fact that after arrival of Islam in India,the society had got divided in two segments that had ultimately led to inevitable partition of India,as also absence of an effective population control programm the then leaders indulged in ideals of peace and non-alignment without any co-relation to realities on ground and even without any programmes to meet these realities. Instead of reviving and strengthening common bond of Indianness, by and by full stress was laid on diversity alone for appeasement and instead of developing a corruption free broad minded and far sighted spiritual society with scientific temper , a corrupt and divisive society was bred which only encouraged blind faith.
With misplaced stress on peace , the country had to confront a situation where China ran over our weak defences in 1962 and even Pakistan braggingly dared to run over India in 1965. Subsequently as a cumulative effect of wrong policies, Pakistan perpetrated terrorism in Kashmir and encouraged radical Islamic thought which considers India yet unislamised territory. On twenty sixth November,2008 terrorists from Pakistan attacked Mumbai in which one hundred and eighty three lives were lost. The attack had been planned and perpetrated from Pakistan and the terrorists had come via sea. Just earlier in its attempt to promote secularism based on false premises,,the then government at the Centre had even gone out of its way to convince the National Integration Council meeting on fourteenth October,2008 that isolated communal incidents needed to be tackled on priority bases. Terror bells had been ringing loud and clear all over the country for decades, but threat posed by terrorism to security of the country was at the most relegated to a passing reference in the meeting.
The terrorist attack on Mumbai yet once again clearly exposed false basis of policies and actions government had been pursuing for decades. With corruption reaching its crescendo even at highest levels of United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre,it continued to ignore real issues facing the country and as also its real needs. Among other matters,political issues of Islamisation,terrorism and attempts at further division of the country on communal basis continued to pose threat to unity and security of the country. People had started to realise that a strong ,stable non-dynastic government alone could take strong steps as had been demonstrated in 1998 when India conducted nuclear tests. General elections in 2014 provided an opportunity when people effected a change in political ambience of the country and based it on real nationalism as understood all over the world.India had been rediscovered and nationalist party BJP was brought to power at the Centre with clear majority. The united, decisive and strong government gave a new direction to foreign policy of the country, based its neighbourhood policy on concrete national interests and took strong steps to fight terrorism and protect integrity of the country. Constitution of India guarantees equal rights to all citizens of India without any distinction of caste,creed or religion and there should be no room for appeasements,vote bank politics or populism.
After its installation in 2014,the new government at the Centre has also taken numerous steps to accelerate the stalled economic progress of the country. It rid the country of rampant corruption at highest levels of the governance. It has also undertaken large number of projects and programmes in different forms to end wide-spread corruption in Indian economy and the society as a whole, one of first such step being demonitization. GST has been implemented to streamline tax system and turn the country into a single market though it had been initiated earlier. Apart from large number of developmental programmes, it has ushered in `Make in India Projects`. It has undertaken welfare schemes for poor sections of society on a massive scale and numerous steps have been taken to take modern technology to every nook and corner of the country. Just to quote an example from one of such welfare programmes, LPG coverage of households in India started during late sixtees jumped from 55% in 2014 to 90% during just four and half years of present government under accelerated `UJWALA SCHEME`. There is hardly any sector which has been left untouched. Mass cleanliness drive `SWATCH BHARAT SCHEME` introduced throughout the country for the first time has created tremendous awareness about hygienic cleanliness and achieved many laudable aims.
India has been rediscovered but to sustain and further consolidate its new identity,the country would need a strong,stable,decisive and effective government for decades. It cannot afford to lapse into incoherence and irrelevance again. For political evolution on sound lines,political parties will have to adopt matching changes in consonance with new national identity of India which could ultimately lead to emergence of desirable two party system. Undue obsession with religion is not in keeping with times and there can be no room for aberrations like lynching in a spiritual society informed by scientific temper.
The author is IIS (retd)
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