We are lucky to have an un-politician type Prime Minister of India.
Narendra Modi’s administration in Gujarat fetches him enough credit
points to be taken as an administrator first and a politician second.
The new educated generation has high hopes from him. Right from the
evening of May 16 when election results were declared Modi has been busy
like a true son of mother India and has
started drawing the roadmap for a better India for majority of the
Indians. We don’t have any reason to be skeptics regarding his
capability to take India ahead on the path of multi-dimensional
progress.
But there is a roadblock that might face Modi when he
again fights for another innings in 2019. It is born of a certain
Congress legacy. All of us do agree on taking Congress and Corruption as
synonymous. And rightly so! But decades of Congress-type mis-governance
ensured that the very roots of the tree got corrupted to the core.
Corruption is not just about 2G Spectrum, Commonwealth Games and Coal
Block distribution; it is also about common Indians’ belief that without
shortcuts nothing can be done. It generates a mentality that does not
consider the shortcuts or the typical Indian jugadbaji as the means and
mechanism of corruption, but the simple convenient facilitators. People
have come to accept the extra costs as additional service charges;
officials in various departments have come to consider it as their well
deserved unofficial bonus. These officials have set up their budgetary
benchmarks to keep their families. Unofficial bonus plays a major part
in satisfying this excessive-consumer-lorn mentality. Any cut in this
part, which clean governance surely will result into, will find them
recalling good old days with nostalgia.
Ask anybody what does
government service mean. They will say it is about having safe money,
almost no work, and unofficial bonus for the small amount of work that
one is supposed to perform officially. For this great facility people
pay lump sum amounts to get a government job. Since they start their
journey after paying the unofficial bonus to somebody, they also get it
back when they get the governmental chair. But Modi-style governance
will mean full work and no bonus. That will find millions of government
vallahas shaking their head in disapproval. Some of my friends are
government teachers in Delhi. Their academic enthusiasm found them
supporting Kejriwal vigorously. Straightaway Kejriwal talked of more
effort by the idling government teachers. They were asked to stay in
school for couple of extra hours daily to cover up the massive loopholes
in public education system. Immediately their faces got shrunk. They
started abusing Kejriwal and accepted their blunder in supporting him.
So millions of public sector workers and their dependents will always
prefer Congress-type work culture and governance. It will be very
difficult to convince these guys in 2019 that the work they are being
asked to perform without the unofficial bonus is a contribution to
nation building.
Congress and its constituents abused power.
But they were really kind in allowing it to be abused by anybody to the
lowest rung. India is a free country in every sense. One can defecate by
roadside, one can spit anywhere, one can cross red lights, one can call
the prime minister a clown, one can molest women, etc., etc. Good
governance will find things falling in place and people feeling cheated
and that their wings have been clipped. Manmohan government had a bad
reputation and they allowed anybody to throw jibes in media in whatever
form one wanted. The top office in the country has lost its dignity.
Modi will definitely try to get it back. But then people will start
calling him a dictator. Even poor Manmohan will earn few credit points
for being very lenient and allowing even beggars in Delhi to throw
obscenities in his name.
Sum and summary is Congress leaves a
ghost. Congress might be out of the seat, but it still survives in
spirit in millions of Indians who are in a comfort zone based on the old
mindset and its profits. Rectifying things in full vigor might see
Indian infrastructure improving, but Modi losing votes as well. How long
Modi can inspire people to come ahead for building the nation. It is
bloody massively populated country. For one chapati there are ten
claimants. At this level people cannot see the world beyond their home
and hearth. So Modi’s nationalistic agenda might see India progressing
in infrastructure, but at the cost of massive indents in his popularity
since Congress is ruling India in terms of work culture, narrow
mentality and unofficial bonus!!
Getting 335 seats in
Parliament is no guarantee that whole of India has given go ahead to the
green signal of nation building. It is very easy to shout as a part of
crowd baying for revolution. But it is far more difficult to come out of
the self-centered zone and contribute extra for the nation in lieu of
the same rewards. It is very easy to excite voters into a frenzy; but
far more difficult to turn these frenzied zealots into responsible and
self-governing citizens. Ask people to take extra responsibilities and
their faces will shrink. I think already we have millions of shrunk
faces because public sector will now be open for six days a week. I have
already heard many babus lamenting why did they voted for a particular
party. Mother of all political evils, the Congress, may still have
something to smile about!!
Modi
will have to focus on self-governance apart from good-governance. Only
self-governance can make unruly Indians as responsible citizens who will
positively contribute something extra required for good governance
leading to a better India.