Atinder Pal
The inception of all started undoubtedly with the sledgehammer victory of the saffron party at the centre with the BJP forming an absolute majority of its own harvesting 282 seats. The congress collapsed and maybe that too irreparably. The idea of a ‘coalition government’ which was seen as the only viable and inevitable way through for the discourse of parliamentary politics, as propounded by experts taking into account the immense cultural diversity of India, got pulverised and a humble leader who once had been dubbed and condemned for being the slayer of innocents in communal riots of 2002, emerged out as a darling of Indian Public. The conqueror was Narendra Damodhardass Modi. Without wasting any time, he resorted to weed out the various obstructionist and abortive policies and institutions and made a declaration to inject a new lease of life in a bid to transform India from his first address to the nation by forwarding a brilliant extempore speech from the Red Fort rampart on Independence Day.
The opposition parties and the so called third front having being decimated in the parliamentary elections shifted their goalpost and tried exquisitely desperate ways to corner this man on any front possible calling him every draconian name possible from slayer of pre-existing institutions, a photo op to Adolf Hitler. This didn’t deter BJP and the Modi wave didn’t ebb and swept the legislative assembly election of Maharashtra and Haryana and the congress faced a blatant rout. This repose of faith of the people in BJP in the assembly elections couldn’t be assigned to merely oratory of Mr. Modi! This was achievable because of the continual faith of the general public in the vision of this man. Mr. Modi has been successful in reiterating the agenda post elections.
Every sector of the government since June seems to be brimming with activity. Several audacious schemes have been successful so far like the pradhan mantri jan dhan yojana, which completed the ambitious task of opening up 100 million bank accounts and issuance of RuPay card to the rural poor. This step has lead to substantial financial inclusion of the rural poor. For a county, with a staggering 92% population in informal sector and a whopping 60% of it dependent on agriculture, that too primarily subsistence, it is a much enabling act. Enabling them to get access to much cheaper institutionalised agricultural credit, both in the form of incentives and marketing assistance so that the ignorant farmers can remain away from vicious money lender and wholesaler nexus and thereof be able to cut intermediaries that divulge profits. This has a far reaching positive consequence indeed.
The future prospects may well include pondering on raising the FDI cap in multi-branded retail so that farmers may be able to negotiate for better prices and give a competitive overhaul to the agricultural market. Empowerment of cooperative societies has been envisioned which again would benefit the farmer. Telecom ministry has recently announced laying down of 700,000 kilometres of optical fibre network in the rural India in the upcoming 3 years which is truly phenomenal. This is going to educate the farmer, digitalize rural India and certainly boost the e-retail market and e-governance in India, which both are pygmies as to those of USA and China.
Incorporating the spirit of “cooperative federalism”, the socialist era PLANNING COMMISSION was cast out and NITI Aayog was formed which clearly aims at devolution of financial powers to the states thus transcending the gap between conception and real progress and also quelling the discrepancies of the states for having more say. Obviously, with the chief ministers as its members, states can exercise the necessary leverage they are entitled to now for funds to which they were previously alienated to. Furthermore, development requirement in India have moved beyond traditional “five year planning systems” as rendered by erstwhile planning commission. Another major strident step envisaged is the implementation of a common GST. Many taxes impeding fast and easy flow of goods will be clubbed together like CST, VAT, luxury tax, entry tax etc leading to faster movement and hence faster economy growth. The supply logistics performance index is definitely going to improve. The government has a deadline and is eager to get the bill cleared by centre and states early. E-Tolling at toll booths has also been planned for cutting fuel and delivery time wastage.
After all these giant leaps of the Government, spearheaded by Narendra Modi and committed to development agenda, playing partisan politics and blatant display of chauvinism by the other party members by calling governments initiatives “anti-poor” I think is a disservice to the nation. India has to rise above petty politics and ruckus in the assembly sessions. Modiji is the right man at the right place at the right time. With the oil prices slumping, fiscal deficit in control, Chinese slowdown and a strengthening rupee coupled with Demography and an incomprehensible demand, INDIA can hit the nail and be crowned as a galvanising world superpower in the upcoming years and as they say in America the “great American dream”, Mr. Modi is the man who can canoe us to “THE GREAT INDIAN DREAM”.
(The author is NIT Srinagar student)
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