My Country India : Hope and Despair Part II

 India in 1989 was a story of despair for the Congress party. More than 400 seats in Parliament on the back of a sympathy wave due to the assasination of Mrs. Indira Gandhi was a dream cum true, yet the leader made crucial errors and lost all opportunities. The Bofors scam and the rebellion of his own colleague V. P Singh led to a defeat in 1989. A coalition government led by Janta Dal a combination of fragments of Janata Party supported from the outside by BJP came to power. The implementation of the Mandal Commission recomendations created unrest and many of the middle class voters like me who saw V P Singh as a great honest hero were extremely disappointed. If merit were to be crushed at the altar of politics then does this nation have a future? The image of the self immolation of a student is still fresh in my memory.  BJP played up the RamJanmabhoomi agitation and claimed that the secular governments were appeasing Muslims. They withdrew support to VP Singh and India saw a series of coalition governments propped up by Congress till 1991 elections. The middle of the election saw the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi by Tamil suicide bombers an event which enabled the Congress to emerge as single largst party and a retired polyglot scholarly man, Mr. Narsimha Rao became PM simply because the grandchildren of Rahul were not ready to allow Mrs. Sonia Gandhi to lead the country. Also, the feeling of not having a foreigner lead India seemed possible with a President APJ Abdul Kalam who was likely to arrest this possibility on legal advise. 

               

The leadership of Narsimha Rao and his approach of appointing pro reform technocrat Mr. Manmohan Singh as Finance Minister with Mr. P chidambaram as Commerce minister and backing the economic reforms which India needed was a watershed moment in India's history. As a young adult I saw the emergence of the entrepeurnerial instinct of Indians blossom. In one year more reform occured than in almost 3-4 decades. While Dr. Manmohan Singh gets a lot of credit, India was course correcting due to an unprecedented financial crisis as a result the unstable governments and decades of economic mismanagement. The facade of welfare state, socialist leanings and licence permit raj had stifled India's growth and the credit goes to Narsimha Rao who backed India Inc. and opened up the markets allowing foreign goods and competition to enter India. Globalisation led to two decades of continous growth and continuity in policies across governments. As ones who had lived in scarcity and shortages we were a generation which had seen both sides of India. The race between China and India began. The Tiger and Elephant were competing and even today while the Tiger is ahead India can potentially catch up. 

         

Nothing happens by accident and there were in Government a combination of right people who had a template of reform ready but it is to Narsimha Rao's credit that he managed the political climate and opponents in his own party along with the communists. All of them he neutralised by deft manipulation and Chanakya like skills. Suddenly India was proud to flaunt its wealth, profit was no longer a bad word and spending and indulgence was applauded in new India. 

 The economic success could not prevent the steady rise of BJP. In those days thanks to the mistakes committed by Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv Gandhi the BJP created a compelling narrative of a party with a diffference. It exposed the hypocrisy of Congress vote bank politics the accusation of Muslim appeasement and psedosecularism stuck. The symbolism of the Ramjanmabhoomi Babri Masjid as a threat to Hindus and creating a discourse around righting the historical distortions struck a cord with many including myself. In 1992, the Rath yatra led by Mr. L. K. Advani created a surge of public support and created the entity of the Hindu vote bank to counter the Congress vote bank of Backward claases and minorities. 

The intended or unintended consequence of this culminated in the demolition of the Babri masjid led to violence and bloodshed. Once again it's leadership needed to take the blame as they all put the lust of power and vote bank politics above national interest. The reaction to this was the infamous Bombay Bomb blasts, the handiwork of the underworld Dawood Ibrahim gang. These blasts had a very big negative effect and a secular city became partly polarized and divided on Communal lines. The involvement of underworld and Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt compouded the tragedy.While this was going on Kashmiir was alienated and boiling over. 

Stories of hope continues and one such was the development Delhi Metro. It was an exemplary controlled exercise which made India proud. And having seen a bungling state in my childhood, a clean high quality metro was an achievement in itself and proved that the unleashing of the Indian geius can create wonderful outcomes. The telecommunicatin revolution and spread of internet were indeed game changers fo India. 

For a vast majority of us youngsters and by this time I was already a doctor and pursuing post graduate studies, the BJP started to seem like a principled party with a differnce. My generation who had not seen the horrors of partition but seen the Bombay blasts and communal violence where more often than not fanatic Islamic foot soldiers had the upper hand, felt this was pay back time. And besides world over and particularly in Kashmir we saw Muslim community as an enemy. India voted for BJP as the single largest party and there was a hung Parliament. All opposition joined hands to topple a Government led by Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee a charismatic moderate leader of a extremist right wing party. Vajpayee's oratory and performance in Parliament was the mask which BJP needed to camouflage the RSS agenda and come to power in 1998. This was on the back of two years of sleep walking government led by the most undeserving compromise prime minister, H.D. Devegowda. In 1998, Atal bihari Vajpayeee was made new PM even as the BJP did not have a majority of it's own, heading a coalition government which was held together on the hope that Vajpayee and BJP would rise above communal divisive politics and become a centrist inclusive party in tue with the Constitution of India. Atal Bihari Vajpayee had a greater clout as a mass leader who attracted the non Hindu vote as well as allies across political spectrum. 

Vajpayee asserted India's nuclear capacity but conducting nuclear test. Besides, he reached out the neighboring country and Pakistan in particlur with a visit to Lahore by bus. All these and his ability to take the country along was a time of great hope and expectation. An NDA government removed the untouchability tag from BJP which cleverly used a mask to get legitimacy and power. All contentios issues were left to simmer to gain acceptability. 

A continuity in terms of the policy of globalisation and economic reform along with a push for roads infrastructure made him perhaps in my view one of the best PM's of India. This was a time of great hope. A talented cabinet with the likes of Ram Jetmalani, Arun Shourie, George Fernandes, Omar Abdullah and L. K. Advani and many such gave a positive contrast to the image of a Congress led by Sonia Gandhi the foreign widow of late Rajiv Gandhi. 

The betrayal of Pakistan and the Kargill incursion was neutralised by the valiant offices of the army, but this was marred by allegations of corruption in getting arms and protective equipment for our soldiers. While India quelled the attack the weakess of India was exposed in 1999 December Christmas time when a passenger plane was hijacked by Islamic terrorists. This was a major goof up in security and exposed India's ability to counter terror when it could not prevent the pale to leave indian shores and reach Kandahar in Afghanistan. As citizens we lost face when we saw our foreign minister release and accompany terrorists who were from LeT masterminds of Mumbai Terror attack of 1993. The Home Minister L.K. Advani so called succcesor of Iron man Sardar Patel, was shown to be a weak hand wringing common man caricature of RK Laxman cartoon.

 The next millenium and decade saw the country progress and Inia's soft power, movies, beauty pagents victories were getting amplified thanks to international exposure. India was still a young vibrant nation with hope that eventually things will turn out right. Democracy still held sway but pressures were rising and in Deecember 2001 saw a daring attack by terrorists on the Parliament the seat of power. India and Pakistan were on the brink of nuclear war and a border concentration of armies created a very inflammatory atmosphere in the country. It was astroke of luck and some smartness of security prevented a disaster, yet many cynics joked that it might have been a blessing if our selfish corrupt politicians would have been eliminated.

The cycle of hate retribution set in motion by the demolition of Babri Masjid, followed by Mumbai blasts created an opportunity for BJP to consolidate its vote bank . A campaign to mobilise kar sevaks to build the Ram temple was encouraged and was designed to create a climate of hostility. Amidst all this came an incident at a raiway station in Gujarat named Godhra where kar sevaks mainly Hindus had some altercation with the local Muslim persons and the coach carrying them was set ablaze. This may or may not have been true but the state government instead of controlling the problem with a firm hand thought it fit to blow this incident up. The bodies of the kar sevaks who lost their life were paraded in the streets of the capital and a call for retribution made. A state sponsored orchestrated riot was engineered, targeting the Muslims. In my experience this was the first televised communal riot of India and the horrors of this was brought to us live on our screens. The CM of Gujarat Narendra Modi and his Home Minister Amit Shah were cynically playing the game of creating a winning strategy in Gujarat which they wanted to replicate all over the country. On technical grounds to this day it is known that they were given a clean chit. For me this was the litmus test for the NDA Vajpayee government and for Prime Minister Vajpayee. Left to himself he would have dismissed the Modi government and I feel that that would have cemented his place and put RSS/VHP/ Bajrang Dal hotheads in their place but this did not happen. The action reaction statements much like Rajiv Gandhi saying similar thing in 1984 Sikh riots left me embittered and in despair. However, this Government governed well but for this blunder. One thing that was a moment of hope was the appointment of Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam an ISRO scientist as President of India. He was a Presidentwho converted the office of President from a rubber stamp to an active vibrant inspirational figure respected by the nation. 

In 2004 against all odds, amidst an India shining campaign the Congress party led by Mrs. Sonia Gandhi and her UPA partners defeated the NDA and luckily for Idia, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi did not become PM, even though she could have done so. She chose Dr. Manmohan Singh achitect of the reforms of 1992 as PM of India. A technocrat with the best CV a CEO of a country can have needed political savvy and backing which was provided to some extent by Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, but this was not consistent and the image was that this was a remote controlled Government. Along with this was saddled by allies who as state politicians were corrupt and used Ministries as sources of income. However, the reform agenda was pursued and India saw some of the best years of economic growth. Millions of people came out of poverty thanks to GDP growth even as India saw more individuals becoming billionnaires. 

In 2006, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employee Guarantee act was a laudable attempt to provide social security to the poor. Acts like Right to Information act came from the Governments willingness to engage with NGO activists through a National Advisory Council headed by Mrs. Sonia Gandhi. India was at least showing hopes of economic revival and some positive initiatives towards social security and public accountability were positive measures well appreciated by the citizens 

Terrorism struck India repeatedly and my feeling that the perception of a weak government made us a target but probably that is what the media and the opposition would have us believe. India was a target during Vajpayee era and the Bombay local train bomb blasts of 2006 were no different, however I still feel that despite atttempts to divide the people there are very few local home grown terrorists from both communities. 

The Indo-US nuclear deal helped to get great benefits to the Indian Nuclear program and will help the energy sector immensely. This happened in 2008 along with ISRO launching sateellites all moments of hope and pride for India. 

The 26/11/2008 Mumbai terror attacks ranks among the darkest moments for India in my memory. The proximity to where we live and our vulnerability was exposed in a manner which scared the daylights out of many, but hope came in the form of courage and valour shown by commoners, police, commandos and so many in those dark days. The shining example of Taj employees and Ratan Tata their employer gave rise to hope that India is still a great nation.

The next decade saw the gradual prosperity of India along with rise of the BJP. In 2010 the hosting in Delhi of the Commonnnnnnwealth games saw the best ad the worst of India. Corruption shoddy work was mixed with world class facilities and like the Monsoon Wedding at the last minute all was just about OK. 

The last few years of the Manmohan Singh Government were plagued by corruption and scams which led to stalling of Parliament and policy paralysis. The Lok pal agitation of Anna Hazare, rise of AAP in Delhi, Punjab and Goa and the strong showing of Mamta Banerjee and Naveen Patnaik in West Bengal and Orissa are signs of hope. 

Modi and te BJP were ready for the kill and in 2014 he led his party to a spectacular victory on the back of a campaign of development. Having lived through the betrayal of inclusiveness by Atal Bihari Vajpayee I was not ready to be taken in by the mask and was not ready to vote for BJP. 

The Modi era has been one of infrastructure development and progress but the gradual agenda of Hindu Rashtra leaves me full of despair. The hope is democracy will ultimately prevail and the Indian people will vote wisely.  

I will not continue much in this blog except in general terms say that this last decade is to close to comment on and India continues to be complex and full of mutitudes and difficult to comprehend. The nation is such that any statement we make about it the opposite is true. I am positive that in the long arc of history India has a lot to look forward to and its demographic dividend of youth give me hope that as our inings close the youth will carry on. 

In the end I leave you with some what if moments?

What if Jinnah was unable to Partition India?

What if Sardar Patel was PM first?

What if Nehru had been a free market person closer to Us than Russia?

What If Shastri had not died prematurely?

What if Indira Gandhi had not promoted her younger son?

What if Indira had not allowed elections in 1977?

What if Operation Bluestar had not occured?

What if Shah Bano verdict had been implemented and the Babri masjid locks not reopened?

What if Atal Bihari Vajpayee had dismissed Gujarat Government in 2002 and got reelected?

What if after Rajiv Gandhi Sharad Pawae, Pranob Mukkherjea or ArjunSingh bcome PM instead of Narsimha Rao?

What if Sonia Gandhi have become PM instead of Manmohan Singh? 

These are still worthy of analysis. 

Vispi Jokhi