Oh, what an Orwellian Year for India!

The year that just ended on May 16 in India has witnessed a great fanfare. Launched much earlier in Gujarat, it has been hailed as not just a scenario change but as a game changer of sorts. Not a snake charmer show, nor a rope trick tamasha at some fairground; but an entirely jaw dropping nationwide picture show broadcast with all the internet gizmos. And the star of the show is none other than India’s own Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Thanks to his driving spirit he has taken his show to continents across the globe – from neighbouring Bhutan, Nepal and Burma to Japan and Australia; and hopping westward across France and Germany to Canada , slightly north of his friend Barack Obama’s USA. And eastward again to China, Mongolia and. For his next show, hold your breath. Don’t go away. His show will be back after the interval. A Bombay, sorry Mumbai, comedian said on his own TV show that Modi had done 14 countries in 12 months. Don’t believe the comic, he could be wrong. His arithmetic may not be good enough to keep an accurate count. Prime Minister Modi’s performances in Canada and China have irked his opponents at home, particularly of the Congress variety. They have taken special objection to his Canadian onslaught where he labelled Pre-Modi India as “scam-India” against his own new era launch of “skill-India.” Or in China where he told his select audience: “Earlier you wondered what sin you had committed to be born in India , now you feel proud to represent India.” The reaction back home has been predictably one of shock and outrage. Mr Modi might have been ashamed of being born in India, most Indians are not. Running down your own country or washing your dirty linen on foreign soil may be an unpardonable sin in international lexicon. Not in Prime Minister Modi’s dictionary. “Prime Minister Modi has done it again ... verbal character assassination of India’s achievements of the last 67 years on foreign soil is unacceptable and is a ‘new low’ in practising despicable politics. From Canada to China, the Prime Minister continues to repeat this historical blunder with scant regard to dissent, opposition and norms of conduct of the high office of Prime Minister,” berated a Congress party spokesman. Mr Modi claimed that India had gained a new respect in international eyes – a respect which was not accorded before his government took charge of the nation. Mr Modi’s notion is an “ insult to generations of Indians gone by who worked tirelessly to lay the foundations of the modern Indian state,” said the irate Congress man. Jokes and angry outbursts apart, it’s a bit disingenuous of Mr Modi to claim that he has won recognition for India. In fact it is the other way round. India’s recognition has never been questioned; it is only Mr Modi who had been derecognised since the 2002 happenings in his home state of Gujarat. He has been restored recognition because of India and because of his new position in India. About the achievements of his administration during the first year of his governance, it is a bit premature to make any claims. The pudding he has been cooking is not yet ready. It is still in the making. It’s promises, promises as yet. His pre-election promise to the voters that he would bring back black money stashed in foreign banks and would put Rs15 lakhs (Pounds 15,000) in every Indian’s bank account remains hopelessly in never never land.. In fact’ his chosen party president, Amit Shah, effectively Number Two powerful man in the current regime, let the cat out of the bag a few weeks ago when he said the Rs15 lakh promise was just a ‘Jumla’ – a casual sentence. A pre-election blank shot fired in the air ! Promises aside, yet the country is running and making impressive strides, thanks to the momentum gathered over the previous decades. India’s own space satellite is successfully orbiting round the Mars, and economy is chugging on course to achieve 6 to 7 percent growth. There are enough food stocks in reserve to overcome shortages of the current season, thanks again to the foundations laid in the previous years by the earlier generations of citizens and leaders. The Modi government is reaping the harvest of the Congress-led UPA governments of Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi and even earlier regimes. And long may any Prime Minister, including Mr Modi, enjoy the national heritage built up by one and all. Yet nations don’t live by bread alone. It’s the quality of community life that matters. It’s here that the Modi government’s performance that seems to have taken a beating. The sense of insecurity among sections of minority communities of various religious beliefs has been quite un-nerving at times during the past one year. Attacks on churches and free run of innuendos and downright abuse by some of ruling party members against people of different faiths have shaken many. The government’s attempts to deflect the criticism by calling the attacks as cases of unorganised stray vandalism has cut no ice with those affected. Nor is the wider public assured by the half-hearted and long delayed expressions of regret by one of the governing party’s MPs who referred to the majority of the population (Hindus) as ‘Ram-zadas’ or sons of the revered icon Lord Ram and some others (non-Hindus) as ‘Haram-zadas’ or bastards. It is not just the opposition parties who are angry over the state of things, some of the trenchant criticism has come from within the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) itself. Ram Jethmalani, a former law minister in BJP’s previous government under Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, has characterised Modi goveernment’s promise to bring back Black money lying in foreign banks as a “fraud on the nation” because of the government’s inability to identify tax havens, even though a previous government had pointed the finger at 40 of them. Another former BJP minister, Arun Shourie has bitterly attacked the Modi government for its failure to reassure the minority communities by citing the example of a former state police chief and provincial governor, Mr Ribeiro who after rendering invaluable service to the nation “feels unwanted in his own country.” Shourie also rounds on his party’s current regime for throwing the cabinet system of governance to the winds. The Modi government , he says , is run by a troika consisting of Mr Modi himself, the BJP party president Mr Amit Shah and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. All other members of government or party are virtually redundant, he alleges. That is a view widely shared by opposition parties as well as by vast sections of general public. Concentration of power in the hands of Mr Modi through chosen bureaucrats in PMO ( Prime Minister’s Office) is common knowledge. Nothing moves without the green signal from the PMO or the nod of the Orwellian Big Brother himself. Scores of government departments remain headless for want of vital decisions, which a single person by himself simply cannot take. The net effect : non-governance, instead of ‘good governance’ and ‘achché din’ or good days , the double plank on which he won election a year ago. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------