Dr Vedapratap Vaidik

India has had 14 prime ministers in the last 75 years. Five of them were from the Congress party and 9 were from non-Congress political formations.   We may recall, Prime Minister has the credit of becoming the longest serving non-Congress Prime Minister of the country.  Modi has successfully completed eight years as prime minister and is sure to complete his second term.

It is also possible Modi may complete his third term in a row without interruption.  If this happens, he will be the first Indian Prime Minister after Jawaharlal Nehru, who will be the Prime Minister for the longest term without any break. Even in many of our neighboring countries, there have  been hardly any leaders  who  could rule for such a long period.

But the basic and most important question is not how many years were in power? The larger point is how far you could improve the status of the nation in terms of economy, infrastructure facilities and standard of living of the general public?  If you have uplifted the nation and improved the living condition of the poor, history will salute you?

Though Indira Gandhi made a horrendous mistake by  imposing emergency,  she is still remembered for her landmark  achievements  like nuclear tests, annexation of Sikkim,  and above all for the  enforcing the formation of  Bangladesh.  Her slogan, ‘Garibi Hatao’, reduced to another gimmick just to win elections. Her way of functioning was imitated by most of the political parties and today almost every political party is functioning like a private limited company.  

Will Narendra Modi be able to change this pattern and bring inner party democracy within the political formation or will his attitude further strengthen the  current style of functioning is a million dollar question.    The current pattern followed by the majority of the political formations will not only compromise internal democracy of the organizations but will fracture the democratic fabric of the nation.  

 Similarly, India’s economic progress has also been limping during the tenure of all the Prime Ministers. China which was economically far behind India 50 years ago is today five times or more ahead of us.  In the last eight years, the Modi government has taken creditable efforts to uplift the standard of living of the common man. Abrogation of Article 370 and Triple Talaq is commendable.  Let me remind those in power that creation of a uniform civil code, eradication of caste and reducing  the supremacy  of  English  are also equally important.

The pertinent question here is, has any basic work been done in the last eight years in terms of education, medicine and employment? You can have politics of respite from the strength of bureaucracy, but you must also have your own original vision for revolutionary changes and you must also need to  know the  art of communicating politely with the people  having vision.

In the field of foreign policy also, India could have taken many innovative and fundamental initiatives, but it is unfortunate we could not prevent the Association of our neighboring nations – SAARC dysfunctional and redundant.   It is strategically imperative we seriously contemplate forming a federation of the eighteen (18)friendly nations.  To my understanding these nations maintain cordial and balanced relations with the superpowers. But for India to become a superpower on its own rights there is a need for concerted efforts in this direction.

*Dr. Vaidik is a widely travelled scholar-journalist. He has visited more than 80 countries on diplomatic and educationalmissions. Dr. Vaidik has won more than a dozen National and International awards for academic and journalistic excellence. He has been a member of several Advisory Committees of Government of India.