Monday, May 30, 2016

Vox Populi : Issue 153

VOX POPULI

by

 Aam Admi

Issue: 153       Date: 30.05.2016      

1.       The Need For The Celebrations of Modi Govt.'s 2nd Anniversary?

2.       Rishi Kapoor Sets The Cat Among The Pigeons

3.       The Enigma That Is Narendra Modi

4.       The AAP In Transition


             The Need For The Celebrations of Modi Govt.'s 2nd Anniversary?


One cannot really see the necessity of the BJP-led NDA government celebrating the completion of being two years in office. What are Narendra Modi and the BJP celebrating? Is it the commendable achievement of theirs to having remained in office for 2 years which is beyond their wildest dreams! Otherwise one does not see any significance of celebrating the 2nd anniversary and that too on such a scale. All this when farmers continue to take their lives because of drought, when there are no indications of prices of commodities and food items cooling off in the market place, when industrial growth is slowing down, when agricultural growth is negative, when your exports are falling, when job growth is negative, when all PSB's along with some of the major private banks have shown a drastic fall of profits coupled with a massive rise in NPA’s and when drawal of credit is the slowest for the last many years by industry. In fact the money spent on these celebrations across the country and on the newspaper advertisements should have been better used to spend on relief measures to the needy in our midst like drought affected people.  To get into the celebratory mood that the BJP seems to be in we should be given special glasses to look around and see everything rosy like they seem to be seeing. The situation is akin to someone who cannot see Narendra Modi's 'new clothes' even though everyone seems to be complimenting him for them in blatant sycophancy.  Postscript: When you write something like this, one is immediately branded as being part of the opposing party or a political motive is introduced in the equation, while actually the reality is hiding somewhere there in between the two which our leaders fail to see. It is almost as if the subject is taboo and one should not raise it. This happens when we are ruled by mediocre minds which are more used to understanding duality than the reality of things.


                             Rishi Kapoor Sets The Cat Among The Pigeons


Rishi Kapoor has been absolutely correct while raising the point as to why everything starting from street names to government schemes should be named from someone in the Gandhi family and why we do not even think of naming such things with the names of eminent local people who have made their mark and/or contributed in public life. To this valid point the Congress party seems to have taken umbrage and it is said that in Mumbai the party workers have named a public toilet in Rishi Kapoor's name. The celebrated actor has taken this fact sportingly and in good humour. In other places Congress workers have been burning the actor's effigies in public. Is it to actually show outrage or is it to try to catch the eye of the High Command and get into their good books? If it is the former then the Congress is behaving exactly like the BJP was doing on the beef or the nationalism issue, when the Congress had branded the BJP as intolerant. In the present context is the Congress not able to stomach Rishi Kapoor's criticism? Carrying this point further the BJP is presently in the process of launching many a scheme and re-naming some of the existing schemes in the names of their leaders. So the BJP is no different. As for the common citizen if  the schemes are simply named after their purpose then it would be easier for them to comprehend if they can avail it or not rather than scroll down the leader's names which are common for many a scheme. 


                  The Enigma That Is Narendra Modi


Maybe at this time when the BJP government led by Narendra Modi is celebrating two years in office we should analyse the enigma that is Narendra Modi to properly understand his personality and his response mechanisms. This particularly so when he is faced with unusual and maybe perplexing situations that he finds himself being catapulted into at times, by virtue of his pre-eminent position as Prime Minister of India. From a person who stood up to the old guard within the BJP, who successfully wooed the RSS top brass and chose to show his thumb to the other contenders and thus secured the nomination to be Prime Minister has been an exhilarating journey for the 'chaiwallah' by his own admission. From then on to the hectic electioneering to obtain the massive mandate of the absolute majority in the Lok Sabha was another commendable step. The position that this put Modi in would surely have convinced him into thinking that he could do no wrong. Embarking with this mind-set to govern India, the first shuddering brake to that joyous momentum was when Arvind Kejriwal won that unprecedented majority in the Delhi elections almost wiping out the presence of all parties including the BJP in the Delhi legislature. Thus this was to be seen that the capital city which had welcomed Modi to become the Prime Minister of India had thrown him out when it came to governing it. The next unnerving thing were the Bihar elections where the JD(U) and the RJD cobbled a hurried alliance and relegated the BJP to the opposition. In the meanwhile there were minor setbacks in one or the other by-elections to the State Assemblies where the BJP again faltered. The latest Assembly election results are nothing much to crow about since statistics show that other parties won more seats than the BJP in these elections, the BJP lost 4 out of 5 States and the only gain in Assam was because of the three term incumbency of the Congress where the BJP got the anti-incumbency vote and also the emotive vote about the illegal immigration from Bangladesh into the State.

Prime Minister Modi had in the initial euphoria charted out a foreign policy program to woo the world and bring home to them the new BJP establishment holding office in India. Like the honeymoon is most often tinged with rosy hues Modi's charm brought him kudos from almost every single foreign capital that he touched more so from the Indian diaspora in these countries. And he did touch a few capitals around the world and some multiple times in these last two years! But then he found that he did have to come back home and show that he was capable to govern the country. In that responsibility he has been an infrequent visitor even to Parliament and the butt of many a joke from his co-MP’s among which is that the MP’s found him reaching for his seat-belt when settling down in his place in the Lok Sabha!

One finds Modi in contrasting almost contradicting styles like he is an excellent orator given a lectern but completely tongue-tied like his predecessor in the Prime Minister’s office when having to confront any public issue that is seizing the minds of the people. He continued to remain silent on the beef debate, the intolerance wave that emerged from that while his BJP compatriots and some of them ministers indulged in their foot in the mouth exercises while commenting on these sensitive matters. This continued with Modi again strangely silent when issues of nationalism, sedition came up and people were being judged on their patriotism by whether they were willing to say – Bharat Mata ki Jai! We needed a hands-on Prime Minister to steer the country from the rot that had set in during the earlier UPA regime where we find Modi sorely lacking. One sees him as a person prone to being bombastic, with a penchant for populist slogans and with an addiction to rename all schemes to the NDA signature. The result is that the Indian public is confused about the various schemes which are rolled out in event management style and no one is sure if any of them are being implemented. Since otherwise why should farmers continue to take their lives during the current drought for fear of being unable to pay their loans when a crop insurance scheme is stated to exist? The same way the much touted – Make In India – is nothing new since the emphasis on indigenous production has been in existence since the first Five Year Plan which has created the existing industrial base in the country and the 3rd largest technical manpower pool in the world. What was required was jobs for this youth manpower which the Modi government has sadly been unable to provide in any large measure during these last two years in office.  

Concluding one must say that Narendra Modi should show more application and resolve to perform as Prime Minister of India, improve the policy measures of his government which are today mostly shallow and without meaning and show an ability to effectively handle the economy to contain inflation and to provide more jobs to our people to create sustained earning power. There are still another three years to go before the General Elections come around which is time enough to show that Narendra Modi can lead India to a meaningful and sustainable growth path and not constantly look back to point faults of the preceding regime and seek shelter in comparisons but strike out to new frontiers of his own. 


                The AAP In Transition


The AAP led by the feisty Arvind Kejriwal is bringing in a new edge to politics in India. Their style is strident and is staged on brinkmanship. Being a new party, these tactics are essential for them to be noticed and considered seriously. However in their stridency the AAP sometimes comes across as brash, intrusive, immature and insulting which they have to be careful about particularly when they seek to branch out to other States. They have also used the victim position vis a vis the BJP government at the Centre to their full advantage and have thus reinforced their image in the minds of the Delhi voter. At the same time the AAP party has taken initiatives which may be populist but which are firmly embedded in today's politics to entrench themselves in the image of a citizen friendly party. The BJP one must say read the message of the massive mandate given by Delhi to the AAP party wrongly and instead of letting them run the government and commit mistakes and then take advantage of it, the BJP has got into a confrontation mode with AAP. This has therefore allowed the AAP leadership to wrest the initiative from the BJP and portray themselves as someone with good intentions but not being allowed to perform by the Big Brother at the Centre. This has also enabled the AAP to keep the agenda of full Statehood of Delhi in the forefront and show that the BJP is the party that is thwarting the best interests of Delhi. Both the BJP and the Congress being used to the laid-back style of politics involving policies like - 'You scratch my back and I will scratch yours.' - are unable to read the AAP strategies correctly and thus flounder miserably in the manner of their reacting to issues raised by AAP. This was evident when the AAP sometime back went for Arun Jaitley's gullet on the DDCA issue where both the implicated person, the Finance Minister, and the BJP did not know what to do in the light of the escalating crescendo of Arun Jaitley's alleged wrongdoing in DDCA affairs. The same was also true to the recent noise generated by AAP on Modi’s educational degrees.  If it was the Congress then the BJP would remain comfortable in the fact that after a few headline grabbing pronouncements the matters would be allowed to simmer down. Not so with AAP where more often than not the matter ends up in the courts. Thus in overall terms AAP tends to operate as a disruptor in Indian politics. Whether it is a good thing or something purely transitory with the AAP fading away only time will tell. If recent indicators are any guideline, AAP like other political parties at times of their evolution, showed the door to some of its senior leaders who were not aligned to the views of the super honcho, Arvind Kejriwal. You could call this cleansing or consolidation which allows the leadership to wield authority with the least ambiguity. Other than that over the last few months we have seen a spate of advertisements in national mainline newspapers on the achievements of the AAP government in Delhi projecting Arvind Kejriwal prominently. These are again conventional methods of political parties to build an image in the minds of voters. With AAP falling prey to these tactics, one could ask where now is AAP, the party with a difference as they had promised? These ads have also been at a phenomenal cost exceeding some Rs. 100 crores which would it not have been better to spend on development or measures that directly benefit citizens. Thus one would be compelled to say that you had a new babe on the block, the AAP that is, which promised to be different but as days are passing by, it is resorting to the same tricks of the trade that the entrenched political parties play. Maybe like the old adage says - As much as you bring about change, things tend to remain the same. This must be true here also. It is also felt that the AAP needs to put in a special effort still to consolidate and show that they can run a government effectively before considering pan – India expansion. It is acceptable for them in the north like Punjab but they have also plans to come to Goa and in a public rally last week here in Panaji, Arvind Kejriwal raised local hackles by calling Goa a haven for - Sex, Drugs and Gambling. There is merit in this statement but in comparative terms all these problems are much less than in Delhi or other metropolitan cities in India. So should you not clean up your own dirty stables before pointing fingers at Goa, which remains the No. 1 family holiday destination in India.


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