ONE HUNDRED DAYS OF BRAGGADOCIO AND INEPTITUDE

  

After one hundred days of braggadocio and ineptitude what has the Modi government achieved? Well, it started out by making the swearing in of the Indian prime minister an open house for all the members of the SAARC. But the bonhomie didn't last. If the two ladies ruling West Bengal and Tamil Nadu will not allow Modi to repair and strengthen relations with Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, in the case of Pakistan the blame lies entirely with Modi and his bosses in khaki shorts. Hence one saw the strange spectacle of first plying Nawaz Sharif with gifts, then announce a foreign secretary-level meeting to prepare for an Indo-Pakistan summit, and finally cancelling the event because the Pakistani envoy held the usual customary meeting with the Hurriyat leaders of  Kashmir. Within weeks the tension at the Indo-Pakistan border went from the usually bad to worse, and with it went Modi's tea, biscuits, and gifts! 

This disastrous  foray into foreign policy has its roots in Modi's lack of understanding of how foreign policy works and more importantly the torturous history of Indo-Pakistan relations. For Modi muscular postures are a substitute for a cogent foreign policy and an active foreign minister, or for that matter any minister. This subversion of the cabinet system of government where the prime minister is only primus inter pares or the first among equals, has led to a one man government in which the alpha and omega of all decision making and implementation lies with Modi. The concentration of power has a curious sideshow. For the first time in independent India's history we have two key ministries, finance and defence, under one minister from the day the government was sworn in. One wonders how this dual charge works; does the minister move from the North Block (finance) to the South Block (defence), or do the files, the file carriers, and the officials move? Whichever way the movement is, it points to either a lack of direction in cabinet-making or a dearth of leadership material in the BJP.

The poverty of political thinking within the BJP became evident in the manner it handled the issue of appointing the Leader of the Opposition. The rules regarding the allowances and perks available to this post states that a party must have ten percent of the membership of the House to be recognised as the Leader of the Opposition. This rule was made in 1977 when the duties of the Leader of the Opposition were mainly confined to participate in meetings with the Speaker and the Leader of the House. Since then the role of the Leader of the Opposition has grown. He ( or she ) is mandated to be part of the body which chooses those who will occupy constitutional posts like the Lokpal, the Central Vigilance Commissioner, and when the recent judicial appointments bills become law, the justices of the Supreme Court. Without the Leader of the Opposition the act of filling all these constitutionally important posts will be a lame and tame process that runs the risk of being declared null and void. To cling to the letter of an old rule to deny the post of the Leader of the Opposition to the Congress Party while denying the current requirement of the law for the creation of that post is both petty and politically shortsighted.

The BJP has formed the government with just 31 percent of the vote polled, while the next largest block of votes, 29 percent, is with the Congress Party. The vagaries of the first-past-the-post-system has translated the small difference in polling percentage to the brute majority of the BJP in the Lok Sabha. This does not hold in the Rajya Sabha. There the BJP will require the support of the Congress votes to pass the bills brought forward by its government. This cooperation would have been more easily possible if the Modi government had shown political sense on the question of the Leader of the Opposition. On this issue Modi should have taken a lesson from India's first Parliament where the Congress led by Nehru had far more votes than the BJP has now, and the undivided Communist Party with 30-plus votes was the largest opposition party. Nehru mindful of the importance of an actively participatory articulate opposition in the fledging parliamentary democracy that India was, gave the Communist leader AK Gopalan all the honour that was deserving of a Leader of the Opposition. That was statesmanship.

The Modi government has no such claims, much less ambitions. In fact it's first act was to amend the time bar on the re-induction into government service of those who retire from regulatory bodies. This was done to facilitate the induction of a former chair of the telecom regulatory board as the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister. The aim of the time bar rule was to prevent the re-appointment of a government official into a sinecure posting after retirement, and thus curb the bureaucracy's tendency to develop an unholy nexus with its political masters. 

If the first appointment of the Modi government was an attack on transparent governance, its latest appointment of sending to Kerala as its governor a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, has a whiff of unpleasantness to it and makes a mockery of the Indian Republic's order of precedence. But in this who is more to blame is a moot question: was it the Modi government who made the offer, or Sathasivam who couldn't refuse the attraction of the Raj Bhavan even if it is an affront to the dignity of the office he held recently.

The Modi government's economic policy is yet to be stated in a cogent and logical manner showing where we need to reach and how we will get there. Instead we have had a daily dose of alliterative slogans in a full-throated powerpoint-style presentation. A case in point is Modi's  announcement from the ramparts of the Red Fort to do away with the Planning Commission.This high news drama was followed by the damp squib of the PM asking the citizens to let him know how to replace the Planning Commission. And then what? Does he set up a commission to pick out the best idea? Does the winner get a prize? Perhaps a 'purely' vegetarian dinner with Gangajal at 7, Racecourse Road? The possibilities are endless. The issue here is not that the Planning Commission is beyond reproach, but that the Prime Minister of India has to think before he talks or, to quote a proverb, 'look before you leap'. The lesson that a set of slogans are no substitute for an action plan has yet to sink in. Take for instance, the bank account mela inaugurated by Modi. How is it any different from the loan mela of Indira Gandhi? The latter was disastrous for the banks, the former is a disaster waiting to happen. 

Fortunately the Modi government has not copied only the worst from past governments. It's first budget is a sensible continuation of the course set by the previous government. There is nothing wrong with this, unless, of course, repetition reveals just a lack of ideas. Whatever the reason continuation does create the kind of stability that is vital for economic growth. But growth itself is elusive. The increase in GDP in the last quarter is not a surprise gift of Modi. In January last the RBI had predicted this growth based on the then working of the economy. Currently the growth in the GDP is the only positive story. Inflation is still high, the manufacturing index is low, and the fiscal deficit has already exhausted 61 percent of the current year's target. This is not much of an achievement.