Plenty of positives, some trepidation and lots of hope.
As the sundown for 2014 fast approaches, India’s predicament for the year gone by may well be encapsulated in these words. There is a new prime minister who has taken over the reins at the world’s largest democracy and the world’s third largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity is indeed showing signs of shaking off the rustiness of an old order steeped in an acute policy paralysis. But along with the sunlit moments — foremost among which is child rights activist Kailash Satyarthi winning the Nobel Peace Prize — India has also had all the forebodings of a slide towards a medieval preoccupation with a monochromatic social discourse that threatens to deal a body blow to the country’s pluralistic ethos.
But let’s start with the positives and perhaps nothing made for a better headline over the last 12 months than a significant majority of Indian voters opting to decisively put an end to three decades of coalition politics at the Centre, voting, for the first time in the last 30 years, a party to power in New Delhi with an absolute majority. The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) election victory in May was a clear mandate for development from an electorate that had grown tired of regional satraps holding the larger, national agenda to ransom for petty political gains.
Narendra Modi’s clever pitch to sell the dream of “acche din” (good days) to even the most impoverished section of Indian society was in stark contrast to the staid message of socialistic egalitarianism from the Congress that was well past its sell-by date. And the high voter turnout was indicative of an India looking beyond the aura of a Nehru-Gandhi cult.
The confidence exuding from the political arena rubbed off on the nation’s economic health as well, to some extent. According to International Monetary Fund estimates, Indian economy is set to grow around 5.6 per cent in the 2014-2015 period – a steady recovery from the mid 2014 slide under the watch of former prime minister Manmohan Singh when India’s balance of payments deficit and the debt-to-GDP ratio produced all the ingredients of a horror story of sorts.
But having said that, in October, India’s industrial output contracted 4.2 per cent over the same month last year and the figures took market analysts by surprise as they had expected output to increase by 2 per cent. Moreover, the government in New Delhi has so far failed to generate any significant enthusiasm on the foreign direct investment (FDI) front. Even after more than 200 days in office, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has failed to ensure any big-ticket FDI in retail sector. Jaitley’s first budget lacked the vision statement that India desperately needed after ten years of a rudderless sojourn under Congress rule.
In foreign relations, New Delhi’s outreach to immediate neighbours in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) states was a good start. Modi’s invitation to all Saarc heads-of-states to his swearing-in was a clever ploy to build regional consensus. His visits to smaller countries like Bhutan and Nepal and resolution of a long-standing land dispute with Bangladesh set India on the right track in its own backyard. These overtures were backed by Modi’s high-octane maiden address at the United Nations General Assembly and a rock star-like inauguration at Madison Square Garden. While there is no denying the fact that Modi’s first visit to US as Prime Minister was a well-choreographed act that had a significant section of the Indian diaspora contributing in real terms, the overall impact of the message to its target audience was unmistakable: That India Inc is open for business.
However, in terms of the brass tacks of realpolitik, India’s bilateral ties with China and Pakistan continue to be thorny issues that will need more than just glib talk to sort out. While border skirmishes with Pakistan in the Jammu and Kashmir region have increased, there were reports of the Chinese army actually encroaching upon Indian territory in Arunachal Pradesh even as President Xi Jinping was cosying up to Modi in Ahmedabad during a state visit!
On the domestic front, issues of women’s safety and religious conversions have dealt a heavy blow to gender equality and social pluralism. Rapes continue to happen, self-appointed social minders continue to issue medieval diktats on how women should dress and behave in public and activists of ultra-right organisations like Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh continue to force-feed the hapless with Hindu ideologies in the name of “home coming” (read conversions). As churches are attacked, as riots continue to grab headlines and as the economically marginal section gets lured by the promise of a BPL (below poverty line) Card through forced conversions to Hinduism, one wonders whether this is the real ‘India Story’.
In retrospect, it is more of a mixed feeling than any single overwhelming, definitive emotional tug that has ruled hearts and minds over the last 12 months. In the next 10 years, 100 million Indians will join the workforce and one hopes that this young brigade will have all the mental resilience and the moral bandwith to be more responsive to gender issues and socio-cultural pluralism. One also hopes that for vast majority of Indians, initiatives like ‘Swacch Bharat’ (clean India) and ‘Make in India’ will rise way above being mere clever coinages and emerge as the universal template for social and intellectual activism.
