Stop Whining about Modi

There are many like Gopalkrishna Gandhi who cry foul that the BJP managed to win an absolute majority of seats with just 31% of the vote. In the age of data and the Internet, you will surely find someone who crunches the numbers differently.

Like R. Jagannathan. He reminds us that the BJP fought as part of an alliance, which means that it didn’t contest all 545 seats. In fact, it only contested 428 seats on its own.

Raju Limbachiya says that the vote share of the BJP in those 428 seats it contested is 40%. Or if you see the vote share of the NDA, it comes to 38.2%. Jagannathan provides context for these numbers:
“In multi-party systems in the west no party usually crosses a 40 percent vote share; as for the gold standard of mandates – a 50-percent-plus vote – it happens only in two-party races.”

In any case, as Jay Mazoomdaar says:
“It is one thing to oppose the politics of Modi-led BJP; quite another to question its decisive mandate…(as is being done by the) many opposed to the very idea of Narendra Modi.”

Further, we knew who would be PM if the NDA won, didn’t we? Can you say that about UPA 1 and Manmohan Singh? That was something that could not be explained away with the “that is how a parliamentary systemswork” nonsense because Singh was not even a member of the Lok Sabha (that means not even a single citizen of India voted for him)! Where was the outrage then among the liberals and pseudo-secularists?

Remember Delhi and Arvind Kejriwal, the man who doesn’t know the first thing about governance? Or how about 1984, asks Mazoomdaar:
“I don’t recall how many squirmed while putting their future into the hands of Rajiv Gandhi, a first-time MP, who knew more about the shaking earth and falling trees than governance in 1984.”
At least, Modi has tons of experience with governance (does Rahul baba have any?) and a proven track record, something you can already see with his focus on the Rajya Sabha where his party doesn’t have the numbers but whose support he would need to pass bills.

Besides, as Mazoomdaar reminds us, the liberals can’t provide an alternative:
“The concept of choosing the lesser evil fell flat when the least of evils, the liberal evil, turned out to be evil enough in the last decade.”
To liberals, I would say provide an alternative. An alternative who knows how to govern, and oh yes, one who can win his own seat in the Lok Sabha.

Comments

  1. KumarMay 24, 2014 at 6:46 PM

    About the governance which would be good for India, I agree that there is no need to feel negatively towards BJP, which has come to power.

    As to comparisons between national level parties, we need not think much about AAP for at this stage. They are not, as yet, third front with clear visibility. And, they don't seem to think about governance, and within that 'good governance', but only go after "exposing and trying to set right" the wrongs of ruling governments. Let AAP first build a party, not automatic filling of individuals who fit the ideas that AAP, which may not even be spelled out but only sensed. At best they are potential parties, not contending parties.

    That leaves us with only the Congress and the BJP for comparison.

    We all know only too well what the Congress is capable of doing and what it always has being doing. Nothing much that deserves admiration or praise. Decadence and decay are an eternal ingredients in that party, even when the added factor of dynastic desires were not the all-consuming business of the party.

    Now about BJP: The truth is BJP's behavior had never been much different from that of Congress. Both party's men are the same type of people, whose agenda is to take care of themselves. Only the facades of the two parties appear to be different. But the facade is just a show for both parties - the party members themselves do not intrinsically believe in it. The purpose of the facade is to see how far it would give them advantage. So much so, not many of us trust what they say about their "principles". Thus, it appears to me that what BJP has always been doing is also politicking (like the Congress), a word that suggests good feeling within us. A qualitative change in both BJP and Congress would be welcome.

    It all may sound entirely an expression of skepticism. The point is that, the question that would never stop lingering from the day we got independence is, "Why good governance eludes our system?" This is not a single question, because it always goes with some more: "Why is it that polity is a rarity?" "Why is it that there is a paucity of statesmen in our midst?"

    Maybe the fault is partly that of the parties and partly that of the average mindset of us, the commoners. In a way "As is the citizen so is the nation". Fortunately the mindset and attitude of our citizens is not static, so there is hope. We are already changing for the better.

    By the end of BJP-Modi's 5 year term, we will have clear answers to the questions stated here. Till then, we should not feel resistant or negatively towards the formed government. The government has many challenges. Fortunately the party has the advantage of not having to submit to endless compromises with coalition partners. They also have the advantage of a PM, who can take decisions (not many of our Prime Ministers in the past took decisions; their approach was always the "lesse-faire" method; and, there have been times when some silly Prime Ministers avoided taking decisions to a large extent but clung mindlessly to one or two of their "very decisive decisions" - decisions which no person of intelligence would seriously consider worthy of taking!)

    I would be happy to be a citizen of a better-governed nation and may it start happening right away.

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