Gautam Mukherjee
A consolidation in governance towards effecting strong deliveries across the board should be setting in just about anytime now. There have been indeed many, and continuous, preparatory moves, scattered across the first year of the Narendra Modi administration. But now, being able to go into Myanmar, with its permission, in an American-style helicopter-borne raid, to eliminate insurgents attacking our Army positions in Nagaland and Manipur, is a thrilling demonstration of the difference of approach. Our Armed Forces have been unshackled, and given their head by the political authorities after a very long time.
The same Maoist insurgents knocked off here, ambushed and killed 18 Armed Forces personnel in Manipur just a few days ago, with plans to kill many more, right across the North-Eastern States. But our swift and effective retaliation, unprecedented as it goes, is a demonstration of the fruits of Modi’s hectic regional diplomacy; and, of course, his much more muscular stance militarily.
Mercifully, we had no casualties this time. Our Army decided to generously use its best equipment for a change. It was an operation approved by the Prime Minister’s Office. We killed 15 insurgents in a surgical strike, and sent out a strong message that things have changed in how we will handle provocations like this in future.
How long then, before we pursue terrorists from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir across the Line of Control, even as we call Pakistan’s nuclear threat bluff? When we chase Pakistani terrorists like this, by land and air, with a view to eliminating them, we will assuredly get some decent results. And, as things stand, we will probably do it with US, Israeli, Saudi and Russian backing; probably as a full and permanent member of the UNSC ourselves, and possibly – surprise, surprise, with Chinese tacit support as well!
Back at the Ranch, for now, we find the corruption at the top has indeed been stymied. The permanent bureaucracy has been reshuffled, somewhat, and tuned up to work for specified objectives in a time bound manner. Some cobwebby laws have been scrapped, others are being drafted from scratch, and yet others are being revamped/adapted for current relevance. The statist sarkari bent, Kafkaesque in its convolutions, is being re-oriented, with even a rationalisation and re-grouping of ministries.
Road blocks, created by impossibly high environmental standards, have been eased. Money has miraculously been found by the Government where it was lacking. Terms of contracts and tenders have been revised to make things go again; the private sector has been, and definitely is being, encouraged. Public sector units and nationalised bank shareholdings are being diluted. The monetisation and tweaking of national assets are being undertaken. A new broom is attempting to sweep the land clean, and moves are afoot to stop polluting the river waters.
The pledged foreign money, into infrastructure and industry, particularly for roads, power, ports, railways, and defence-manufacturing, will soon start to flow. Defence manufacturing in particular, despite the immense payola and wondrous honey traps that will have to be foregone, alongside an honest to goodness modernisation of Indian Railways, will be remembered long after Mr Modi is gone.
The new job-creation platform, touted over the last year and a half, is beginning to show some green shoots. But soon enough, the newspapers and TV channels will be quiteful of it. Modi’s duck taking to water foreign affairs thrust, something of a major feature of this administration, is going particularly well, and will become the mainstay of transforming his grand vision into
reality.
The world of Modi may be small-town, but it is as brash and confident as any Kangana Ranaut. This is baffling to the established Nehruvian set, quite at sea from what it has tackled in the past. Modi is, after all, the quintessential outsider, a provincial politician made good, and the Lutyens Media finds it hard to predict what he will do next. Modi and Ranaut, without benefit of the triumvirate of successful Khans, are small-town folk; albeit with spectacular, grand destinies to fulfil. They are both remarkably at ease being alone, and, having taken their knocks, keeping their own counsel.
It is true, however, that the honeymoon period, if it was ever there for the highly resented Modi, is indeed over. And the euphoria of its supporters, just a third of the electorate anyway, has also ebbed. Everything is now down to actual valuations and hard news. The equity stock markets have corrected back to the levels of October 2014, and the debt market is volatile and jumpy in anticipation of possible interest rate hikes in the US. But this is all as it should be. We cannot run on hype and empty for any longer length of time.
The many promises Modi made must be made to come true. When they do, the ground rules will have changed forever. This is a Prime Minister and a Government that want to be judged on performance and not ideology. And its ideology, such as it is, is not an unheeding Hindutva, as their critics would have it, but to bring prosperity to all, in the shortest possible time.
Many people believe him, and changes are afoot. Lakhs of Muslims have joined the BJP as primary members. Mumbai will, at last, build it long awaited coastal road from end to end, under the present BJP/Shiv Sena administration. Coal, telecommunications spectrum, insurance and sundry other things have already had their values unlocked, and enhanced for meaningful exploitation.
Bangladesh, a Muslim nation within the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, has, once more, become a warm ally; even as an unmoved Pakistan still plays to the old Muslim League script, alongside our own Owaisi and Geelani. But what will Pakistan do, economically irrelevant as it is in world affairs, when a slowing China finds it fit to do feverish business with India?
The Bihar Assembly election is looming, and the Opposition, midwifed by the Congress mother and son combine, has united to try and defeat the Modi/Shah duo. Lalu Prasad, and his now relative by marriage, Mulayam Singh Yadav, have been made to yield pre-eminence to the ambitious and tenacious Nitish Kumar, as presumptive Chief Minister, backed, at last, by the Congress.
If this alliance of convenience, which is as yet well short of a merger, fails to stop the Modi-Shah duo from taking Bihar, then it is probably all over for it, even for the general elections of 2019. Modi, sitting pretty though he is, may be consolidating already, but there is a lot of growing up to do. In the process, he might still be in charge a decade from now.
