Written by: Apporva Shah
Updated: Tuesday, August 20, 2013, 14:21 [IST]
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How ironical it is, that the touted dream team of Indian economy - Dr
Manmohan Singh, Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, and P Chidambaram will leave a
legacy of terrible growth deceleration, persistently high inflation,
rising unemployment, and a depreciating currency after 10 years in
office.
But the "lost decade" under UPA is not just an economic disaster. This
total economic collapse is only a natural consequence of appalling lack
of leadership, absolute breakdown of authority, directionless decision
making, zero accountability, and complete disregard for integrity and
ethics.
Modi is an idea whose time has come!
Ten years ago, an India that was racing towards a global superpower
status, and striving to reclaim its position in the league of world
nations, has been plunged into an abyss of hopelessness and despair. The
confidence, enthusiasm and vigor that were the catalysts of India's
resurgence seem to have suddenly evaporated.
And in this scene, the man emerges. History bears witness that time and
again effective leaders, who can mobilize people, tackle tough problems
and spot opportunities in crises emerge in times of great stress, change
and uncertainty. In India too, a fierce wild wind that is blowing from
the western state of Gujarat has already rustled many dead feathers in
Delhi; the name is Narendra Modi.
The man's emergence on national horizon is not an overnight phenomenon.
It is a result of a life lived completely in the service of the
motherland, years of devoted work at grassroots level, and a decade of
governance with administrative acumen and effective leadership.
Progress and Performance
Unlike the Congress and most regional parties where leadership is
hereditary and an election ticket is taken as a birthright, Modi's claim
to fame is only one factor - performance. Even in this atmosphere of
gloom, Gujarat under his stewardship stands out as a beacon of hope. As
the reputed global news magazine the Economist puts it - "So many things
work properly in Gujarat that it hardly seems like India."
With 5% of India's population, Gujarat today accounts for 16% of
country's industrial output and 22% of exports. The state has
consistently maintained a double digit GDP growth over the past decade,
with agriculture growing at 10% consistently even as India struggled to
achieve a low bar of 3%. As a result of sustained efforts undertaken by
Modi and his team, Gujarat today has minimal labor issues,
state-of-the-art infrastructure, uninterrupted power supply and
supportive bureaucracy.
The state known for traders only a few years back has made rapid strides
in agriculture, manufacturing and services sectors. The average citizen
so awfully let down by the current national leadership is naturally
looking at Modi to steer India out of the current crisis, and his
stellar track record obviously puts him ahead of others in the race.
Clean Image
When corruption seems to be the order of the day, Modi's personal
integrity and honesty stands out. Modi, his personality, his style of
functioning and his growth model have been subject to unprecedented
scrutiny and analysis in the past few years. Any strong leader will have
his share of adversaries in politics and media, and frankly speaking,
Modi has more than his fair share of them. But even Modi's most
stringent critics and political opponents will admit that the man does
not a have single blot of corruption or scandal to his name. Check this
out - in the recent Wikileaks controversy over leaking of US diplomatic
cables, every politician whose name figured in the cables stood exposed
and tarnished.
Modi's name was mentioned about 100 times in the cable, but he was the
only politician, not just in India, but across the world whose name but
did not contain a single negative reference. When politics India has
become synonymous with dynasty and nepotism, how pleasantly surprising
it is to know that the family of the chief minister of one the richest
states in the country lives in a modest 2 bedroom apartment, away from
the glamour and clout that they could have so easily commanded!
Economic Acumen
There goes a saying in India - good politics is not good economics, and
good economics is not good politics. This is because when the focus of a
political party is so jaundiced on winning the next election by hook or
by crook, it leaves very little scope for pursuing an economic policy
that take years to show results and bear fruits. Our economic disaster
can partly be traced to the lack of political willingness to take tough,
visionary decisions. The UPA in past has resorted to disastrous schemes
like farm loan waiver and NREGA with dire consequences to the economy.
Their new initiatives like direct cash transfer and food security bills
are steps in the same direction, taken only with a view on the coming
general elections. Who cares about fiscal discipline? This is even after
all policymakers have acknowledged that without proper infrastructure
for implementation, such schemes result in huge leakages and losses to
public exchequer without bringing any tangible benefits to the lives of
intended beneficiaries. A politician's true test will lie in being able
to take difficult, enduring decisions even if it requires risking short
term political gains. Modi has demonstrated this in Gujarat time and
again.
In his tenure right from 2001, he has desisted from taking populist
decisions or giving freebies. When he faced considerable opposition in
the last state elections in 2012, he could have easily added a few more
seats to his tally by announcing some freebies and subsidies here and
there, but he resisted taking that path.
Instead, Modi has always focused on generating investment which
eventually leads to more growth, employment and better standard of
living in the long run. It takes tremendous discipline and confidence in
oneself to do this, especially when short term rewards are so
attractive. No other politician in India except Modi had courage to
oppose the proposed Food Security Bill, for the risk of losing some vote
share.
Mass Appeal
Critics have been continuously accusing him of being a polarizing figure
who would not be able to take everybody along with him. Modi's recent
rally in Hyderabad proved how horribly wrong and biased they really are.
Congress's opportunistic politics in dealing with the Telangana
agitation has led to a very distressing scenario of escalating tensions
between the two newly formed regions of Telangana and Seemandhra. Almost
everybody in the state has taken an extreme position on this issue.
Tensions have reached to such an alarming level that no politician can
even take the name of Seemandhra in Telangana.
Modi struck a poignant note, appealing to our Andhra brothers to stop
hostility amongst themselves and move shoulder to shoulder on the path
of development. In an act of sublime statesmanship, he made the entire
crowd hail both Telangana and Seemandhra right in the heart of
Hyderabad. It would have required incredible political courage and
conviction to pull off something like this.
Path of Development
But Modi's single biggest achievement has been to aggressively steer the
national discourse from vote bank politics to development politics. One
of the biggest drawbacks of Indian democracy is that electoral outcome
is still based on caste/religious blocks voting en masse in favor or
against a particular candidate. This remains the primary factor above
all everything else, and the candidate's track record, integrity and
other real issues get overshadowed. Modi has sounded a death knell to
politics based on such narrow identity considerations. In the past ten
years, he has never tried to polarize the electorate through caste-based
references or policies.
Elections in Gujarat have been fought purely on the basis of what the
government has done in past 5 years and how that has affected the lives
of people. In the process, he has offered himself, his government and
his policies for unparalleled examination, criticism and debate. Every
possible social/development indicator has been brought out and analyzed
threadbare. If previous central and state governments had been subjected
to even a fraction of assessment and scrutiny by the yardsticks that
have been applied to Gujarat, India's situation today would have been
radically different.
Patriot who embodies strength
When India is facing serious security threats at the borders and within
its borders, it desperately needs a leader who can take strong decisions
and put narrow political interests aside. It needs somebody who has a
firm and realistic view of what is happening on the ground, which can
provide a powerful political backing to its defence forces, which can
inspire the spirit within the masses. Modi seems to perfectly fit the
bill in this regard.
Need of the hour
He has been most articulate on a range of issues including national
security, foreign policy, reducing the size of government, promoting
enterprise and empowerment, necessity of electoral reforms, changing
India's archaic labor and business laws, etc. What sets him apart
completely from the others is that he provides two things which we
desperately need today - vision and hope.
Narendra Modi's rise is the story of an underprivileged boy from a
village in Gujarat rising in the hearts and minds of people by sheer
hard work and determination. It is absolutely reprehensible on the part
of Congress and their cabal of cultivated journalists to ridicule his
background by calling him names like chaiwalla, tea stall worker, etc.
It is a matter of great pride and inspiration that somebody with even
such humble beginnings rose up as a source of inspiration for millions
of aspiring and restless youth of the country. Their comical yuvraaj is
still roaming the villages of India with a camera crew ostensibly trying
to understand India. At the age of 43, he is still struggling to figure
out what India's problems actually are!!
Modi has been a victim of the biggest witch hunt by political
opposition, biased media, NGOs with vested interests, and so called
pseudo-intellectuals. Anyone would have broken down and given up in the
face of such a vicious, personalized and sustained campaign. Modi has
been able to come out of it much stronger and determined purely on the
strength of his character and convictions.
The arc of politics is now bending, and Indians are now looking at him
as an answer to towering challenges the country is facing. Numerous
nationwide surveys done by independent agencies all have one conclusion
in common - that Narendra Modi is far ahead in terms of popularity and
groundswell of support across the country, and any of his competitors
come only a distant second.
The now inevitable ascendance of Modi on the national centre stage is
not merely the ascendance of an individual. To quote Victor Hugo, for
India, Modi is an idea whose time has come. And when he comes, he will
truly be a merchant of death - merchant of death to terrorism, merchant
of death to vote banks and nepotism, merchant of death to political and
bureaucratic inefficiency, merchant of death to darkness and despair!!
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