By Swapan Dasgupta
On Friday, India didn’t merely elect a government
with a resounding mandate, it categorically entrusted the responsibility for
running the show to Narendra Modi. The extent to which the credit for the
victory belongs to the BJP-led alliance and to the man who campaigned
relentlessly for a Congress-free India will be the subject of debate in the
coming days. To the average voter, however, this is no subject for hair-splitting.
The vote was essentially for Modi, for his combative style of leadership and
for the dream of a better future he proffered.
The opinion polls and the exit polls are quite clear
on this score. The booster dose that carried the BJP beyond the 272 mark and
which gave the NDA more than 330 seats was essentially a result of the massive
support its candidates received from India’s youthful voters, those under the
age of 35. It was this section that gave the Modi campaign its T-20 energy,
allowed it to spread throughout India and break the seemingly impregnable
bastions of caste and community. The credit for Modi’s spectacular victory
belonged to those who demanded a better future for themselves, their families
and their country. It was a vote both for self and nation.
The sheer boldness of the mandate may well be lost
on a political class that still thinks in very conventional terms about what is
possible and what is not on. Modi doesn’t. Having for long successfully defied
the collective wisdom of the commentariat and the entrenched Establishment he
would know that this was not a mandate for consensus but for audacity. After a
long spell of experimenting with the staid and the conventional (that also
included dollops of venality), India has preferred a ‘dil mange more’
impetuosity.
It is imperative to grasp the full meaning of
Friday’s momentous mandate because the next few weeks will witness a concerted
attempt to blunt the sharp edges of the voter restlessness. There will be a bid
to suggest that the excitement of the past three months should be firmly buried
and replaced by a business-as-usual spirit. There will be the usual jockeying
for posts and ministerships by those who were left out in the past decade. And
there will be gratuitous advice showered on the new Prime Minister to shed his
combativeness and be socialised into a new role.
Some of these suggestions are no doubt well-meaning
but Modi must resist the temptations of yielding to the merchants of caution.
The vote is for a radical rupture with the fundamental assumptions of
governance that, in today’s India, has come to mean institutionalised
inefficiency and lack of transparency. Just as he redefined the rules of
campaigning during the course of his 450 plus public meetings since September
2013, Modi must be true to his instincts and his partiality for a national
resurgence.
Such a lofty project will no doubt need relentless
application but equally it will need a revitalised political culture. Hitherto,
governments have proceeded top-down to manage change. Modi will need to harness
the wave of adulation for him for a larger mission to revitalise a creaky
system and make it fit for purpose. This could offend the status-quoists. But
he needn’t fear. If India wanted to merely plod along, it wouldn’t have elected
a man like him.
Times of India, May 17, 2014
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