On May 16, 2014, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi sent out a tweet that reverberated not just through India, but also across the world. After a frenzied, contentious and often vicious campaign, the Indian voter had handed over a majority in the Lok Sabha to one party after a gap of 30 years seven elections. The tweet talked about the dawn and the arrival of “
Achhe Din”- the slogan that Modi had been constantly using to lure aspirational voters towards BJP. Barring die hard Modi baiters (some of whom publicly mused about leaving India for “greener” pastures), a sense of both hope and euphoria enveloped India.
Modi fans or Bhakts saw him as a veritable Kalki avatar who would make India a great power. Even realists hoped that Modi would be able to duplicate his track record of good governance” in Gujarat with simple things like round the clock power and a huge jump in farm incomes. But two years down the road, euphoria has given way to the sometimes chilly breeze of hard reality. Modi still remains the tallest and most popular political leader of India. But the cloak of invincibility has been ripped off and the magic is fading a bit.
Look at political fortunes. Back in 2014, Modi and the BJP looked like an unstoppable juggernaut. In the Lok Sabha elections, he had decimated the Congress party, leaving it with a pathetic 44 seats in the Lok Sabha. The BJP itself won 282 seats and the NDA had a huge majority. He humiliated and trounced both Arvind Kejriwal and AAP with a clean sweep of Delhi and; also Nitish Kumar with a near clean sweep of Bihar. Assembly elections to Haryana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Jammu & Kashmir quickly followed. The BJP came to power in all four states. Perhaps that is when hubris set in. Modi Bhakts thought the euphoria would last for ever. It never does. In February, 2015, Arvind Kejriwal humiliated Modi with AAP winning a mind boggling 67 out of 70 seats. He remains a constant thorn. In November, 2015, Nitish Kumar got his revenge in Bihar in spectacular style. He is emerging as a serious rival to Modi for 2019. The recent assembly elections don’t count for much. And you can take it that there is just no way that BJP will win Uttar Pradesh in early 2017.
Something similar has happened with foreign policy. Modi created a sensation by inviting leaders of all south Asian countries to his swearing in ceremony on May 26, 2014. His handshake and meeting with Prime Minister Nawaj Sharif of Pakistan drew cheers all around. His visit to Nepal promised a new era of strategic partnership. His visit to Japan and the visit of Chinese strongman Xi Jinping to India suddenly made analysts think India was on its way to Big Power status. Of course, his triumphant visit to the United States where he was welcomed rapturously by overseas Indians in New York became his calling card for a while. But look again and the euphoria of those days are gone. Relations with China remain prickly; Pakistan continues to torment India with terror strikes. Nepal is no longer a friend and even the United States continues its “game” of equating India with Pakistan. Sure it has not been all thorns; but it hasn't been as rosy as envisaged in May, 2014.
Something similar has happened on the economic front. It is Modi’s bad luck that India has been hit by two successive monsoon failures and drought in 2014 and 2015. But that “excuse” apart, the “
Achhe Din” have simply failed to materialize; at least when it comes to public perception. The GDP growth rate of almost 7.5 per cent at the moment looks robust; but there are no signs of a massive jump in job and livelihood opportunities. Free market fundamentalists have now decanted him a failure because he seems to clearly believe in incremental rather than radical reforms. The Left won't ever like him anyway. His signature programs like Make in India, Digital India, Skill India and Start Up India are all long term bets; they simply cannot deliver results as fast as India’s aspirational youth wants them. And they couldn't care less about the fact that the Indian economy happens to the be the best performing one in the world. Once again, the euphoria of 2014 has given way to the harsh reality of deep rooted structural problems with the Indian economy.
The author will examine these issues individually and in more detail in a series of articles. But the fact remains that the euphoria of 2014 has given way to reality. And it is not a pretty picture for Modi. He is not a failure by any stretch of imagination; much as Modi baiters would insist his two years has been. But nor has he been able to deliver what the voter expected him to when they queued up at polling booths in 2014 . One could argue that the expectations were too high to begin with. But the. It was Modi who fanned those expectations in his historic 2014 campaign. The next three years will be truly fascinating to watch.
