There was a time not too long ago when a government in power was assessed for its performance after the completion of a five-year term. Then the time span got reduced to one year and then again to 100 days — if it could hold on to power for that long before uncooperative coalition colleagues paved the way to a breakdown in governance, eventually leading to fresh elections. Now, most recently, the maverick and much hyped Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which had turned the ruling party in Delhi on its head, had political pundits rating its performance at the end of just 30 days in power! This makes a mockery of the assessment exercise whose purpose clearly was to mock and denigrate a fledgling movement that had galvanised an entire country into awareness and action by bringing into the open the worst endemic social and political ills plaguing the common man.
Politics in India has long become a joke, right up until the recent massive mandate against the current dispensation. Ambitious, power-hungry, corrupt politicians were jumping across parties like frogs leaping from one cesspool to another, desperate to cling to any straw that would keep them in power and control over myriad opportunities to fill their pockets.
However, the recent poll results prove that the largest democracy in the world is healthy and has given its collective mandate for a growth-oriented government that will restore national pride and esteem in the eyes of the world. The immediate upsurge in the stock markets showed the optimism that the prospect of stability and development could bring. The sheer magnitude of the Election Commission’s role in containing abuse of poll conduct, in setting up the electoral machinery in the remotest corners of a vast country — barring a few “disturbed areas” in central India — and its effective arrangements to ensure fair, free and smooth exercise of voting rights by more than 800 million Indian voters, has earned the stunned admiration of the world once again.
The priorities for the newly-formed government lie plain for all to see. It has come to power on its agenda of development. It has to set the economy right and give a rethink to the policies of free doles and subsidies that debilitate the economy and the spirit of enterprise and self-sufficiency. It has to deliver on its promise to meet the aspirations of a currently disillusioned youth: Provide education opportunities from primary to post-graduate level and generate employment avenues. It must definitively eradicate the rampant corruption and the government’s sluggishness on punitive action against the guilty. It must, on a war footing, rectify the ineffective handling, even fostering, of communalism and the evils arising out of it — of increased polarisation, increased insecurity and fear of rise in terrorism, or worse, being wrongly accused of the same. Finally, it must take a fresh look at the resentment-fostering reservations system in college admissions, jobs and promotion policies where the meritoriously deserving and the economically disadvantaged are losing out to birth and caste credentials.
Little transparency
Having spelt out the priorities for the new government, there are, nevertheless, well-founded fears that loom unabated in the aftermath of the elections and the thumping majority to a new political dispensation. First and foremost is the unwelcome information that more than Rs350 billion (Dh22 billion) was spent during the elections by all parties with little transparency as to the source of the funds, and more than Rs2.85 billion of unaccounted cash was seized by the police — this being only a fraction of the amount distributed as bribes to the electorate for votes. If parties were ready to spend this kind of money — most of it no doubt unaccounted for and untaxed — and if individuals were willing to pay anything between Rs50 to Rs70 million to secure a party ticket to stand for election, it indeed is mind-boggling to imagine how many times their initial investment they expect to make during their five-year term in office. How does the new government propose to stem the corruption at myriad levels and spheres that is likely to continue if such expectations are sought to be realised?
Secondly, one of the main attacks by all political parties was against the dynastic rule of the Gandhi family. This, as a specific attack on one family, is comical if not downright stupid, because which of the major parties is not practising dynastic politics right now? Practically every leader, with very few exceptions, has fielded his wife and/or daughter and/or sibling and/or offspring, ensuring that wealth and power remain within the family.
The new prime minister of India must ensure that, along with all the promises and hopes he has offered to India, the above two bogies are also reined in. Only then can one hope to see a new India rising.
Vimala Madon is a freelance journalist based in Secunderabad, India.
