A Wishlist For Narendra Modi

"With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility" - Voltaire. As Narendra Modi swears in as India's next Prime Minister, a new era in Indian history unfolds. The mandate is literal reflection of his personality of being immensely decisive. A mandate that empowers a capable statesman like Modi to fulfill all the hopes, that sets him free from all the traction of coalition. The first ever government in the recent past that vows to work 18 hours a day altogether skipping its honeymoon period, truly living up to the grand expectation. Off late I have a sincere urge to stop writing on politics and going back to issues of public interest and social reform. However, I thought lets set some agenda before I drop the thread and continue to play the role of a constructive critic. 

After a long while we have a no-nonsense leader in Delhi's corridors of politics who has a vision that impresses every right thinking national. Much have been said about the perils of caste and religion based politics or a politics that has bias of any kind. In that sense, Raj Thakrey and K Chandrasekhar Rao indulge in the same kind of hate politics which has nothing to do with development of the very people they represent.  

In the face of a formidable neighbor like China with mountainous military strength and economy power, this is high time we should set our house in order and get ready for the monstrous challenge. Had it not been the typical international equation while US plays a serious role in maintaining the status quo, China would have already marched on its expansion mission. Countries like Japan, India and Vietnam would have already proved to be easy prey where Russia hardly doing some kind of lip service.

Irrefutably, India would always give a good fight but ask an Army insider he would actually tell you the exact number of days that India could stand against China in case of a war, where US or any other power plays any role. No body likes a war so why did I mention it, what's the relevance here? When two super powers fight for the same resources and market they end up with nothing but war. India can either remain under China's economy servitude or power itself to the top post in Asian continent. However, there is a remote chance of a war breaking out considering the strategic role played by Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam. Moreover, America can't afford to remain neutral as India's fall would tilt the balance of power equation unfavorably towards US. Please do not blame me being another George Fernades of 90s, who too raised serious concerns about China, but this is a reality we live in.

From my perspective, this is the time when the Alice (read as government) should come out of the wonderland and play a Batman that has people's endorsement to save the city of Gotham. 

Manufacturing

My worst nightmare is the missing "Made In India" label, this is highly disappointing that we have actually lost the manufacturing sector to our neighbors. Pick any electronics item or a toy China has a brutal presence, that is extended to all assembled global brands, across the globe. India's leadership in service sector is already threatened by the emergence of minnows like Philippines. Perception about Chinese product was never good, as far as the quality of the product is concerned, they lag behind. However, in the third world country no body actually complains much about that and China continues to lead as a manufacturing and assembling hub. We need to establish our strong footing in this sector and start defying China's supremacy. This would optimally utilize the available man and material resources at our disposal in abundance. Sitting pretty on the natural resources, we export raw material from iron to coal and import again steel and improvised coal for our own consumption. At the same time we are proud of a billion plus population with a majority in its youth which is without employment. The human resources should better be engaged in tapping the manufacturing sector or the same youth would be a huge liability on the nation. Even though there would be a lot of friction from
aggrieved parties like our close neighbor we need to have a strong determination on achieving this long term mission.

All Indigenous 

A fourth of our budget goes to external vendors for defense procurement, but still that does not assure us failure proof ammunition with uninterrupted supply during the time of crisis. We can't expect Russia to support us against the wishes of China as an old communist ally. The fact is non of the military super powers bank on hired arms, but rather a geographically invisible, Israel, has strong international presence because of their ability to build their own state of the art military weaponries. We need to reverse the convention, by positioning ourselves from the largest importer to largest exporter. When we talk about true competition there is actually no place for runners up. Either you are a winner like the Spartans or a looser like Athens, then it hardly matters how advanced you are in comparison. We need to build our military capability as second to none and spearhead as a global leader. No doubt when we partially achieve the above 2 points there would be a paradigm change in power equation, flipping both China and US, leaving a huge vacuum, for us to fit in. Considering government's commitment to spend heavily on social sector, strategic investment in defense sector, in right earnest would have long fetching dividends.

In a crisis ridden economy already crippling under welfare schemes, self reliance is a distant dream when it comes to a manufacturing hub including for military weapons. Neither sufficient white money in dispensation without new taxes could fund these massive infrastructural investments nor the new tax proposals would have any takers. The multi-billion dollar black money stashed outside India should be sufficient for a range of dream projects, may be the benefits can be extended to the individual tax payers via some reliefs. The acrimonious campaign is long over, the election rhetoric should see the lights of reality. A typical problem with the politics, politician forget all such things they say during campaign, but in contrast voters remember every detail. All corruption or malpractice allegations including Bofors case never got the justice post election. Its unfair to allege Mamata for chit-fund scam or a Vadra for land scam if the government is unable to set up a fair probe on such allegations. We have a lot of expectation at least on the black money front, hypothetically if the new govt delivers nothing but succeeds just in the black money case, that would give sufficient ammo to fight all its opposition in next election.

Of course, for future contracts

Election funding is a major source of corruption, a sincere effort to eliminate corruption should always start with election reforms, through public funding. Whosoever, donates to a political party would always look for fevers post election. The petty retail level corruptions would have a natural death the moment the people at top stops taking their percentage. Now if somebody tries hard to convince us that Mr.Ambani's multi-crore donation has nothing to do with the contract pricing afterwards it would fall on deaf ears. However, the government still can adopt a middle path without toeing corporates' line, a right balance between crony capitalism and venture socialism. Couple of years ago, a fellow journalist was ridiculing, Sivraj Chauhan's proposal for public funding of election. Its quite distressing, that no body advocated in favor of the MP Chief Minister, who had the courage to accept the fact of corporate interest in the political donations. All cash donations including the "One Note One Vote" is nothing but hoodwinking the Election Commisioner's model code of conduct on expenditure, acts purely as a camouflage to hide huge corporate money. Same with some self proclaimed non-corrupt parties, who forge the transaction ids or route illegal money (organisations with vested interest) via legitimate NRIs. What we need is government to take right initiatives, eventually all parties would fall in line in cleansing the politics, whosoever does not, have to face public ire.

Identity Crisis

In India, most of us suffer from identity crisis with a multitude of ID proofs, a Ration card, a Voter ID, A Driving License, an Aadhar Card or a Passport are nothing but duplication of service at the exchequer's cost. Aadhar no doubt a giant step, where a card can actually authenticate an individual on the basis of undeniable bio-metrics data, but the actual identity is still a question when the card is sold for a Gandhi note. Very aptly, the Supreme Court snubbed government of India for considering Aadhar as a legitimate ID proof, unless all the loop holes are plugged. Lets move towards a highly secured and confidential citizen data bank under a separate ministry and issue the same bio-metrics based ID card for a host of utilities. This would be an opportunity to convert the mulit-billion dollar liability into a purposeful national asset that veteran Advani once conceived. The mammoth venture should additionally take up the task of striking out bogus citizens, and maintain sanity of the data bank.

A blue print

Narendra Modi hails from RSS, so his vision for India, so when he would retire he should be a proud RSS volunteer, an ideal Ram Rajya without any bias or favor.The enterprising Modi should have the blue prints for next decade handy with all building blocks in right places, to drive us in the direction of development and position India in the top slot.


A sequel in progress with a comprehensive list.