“Disobedience
is the true foundation of liberty.”
Capitalism and democratic freedom go hand in hand. In order for India’s economy to succeed, people need to stop fearing backlash for religious or political beliefs, and have no fear in publicly criticising the government, the PM, elected officials and even the army.
Two For a man who took office promising to attract foreign companies and investment by changing the backward, corrupt, bumbling and bureaucratic image of India, his government’s own PR has been nothing short of an unmitigated disaster.
Henry David
Thoreau
Capitalism and democratic freedom go hand in hand. In order for India’s economy to succeed, people need to stop fearing backlash for religious or political beliefs, and have no fear in publicly criticising the government, the PM, elected officials and even the army.
Silence is no longer an option; it
will be deemed as acquiescence at worst, cowardice at best, at a time when moral policing, anti-Muslim bigotry,
religious intolerance, frivolous accusations of anti-nationalism and
vigilantism continue to grow.
In order for Mr. Modi’s vision of India to
succeed, he needs to go well beyond cutting a few layers of our bureaucracy and
corruption, and also start championing free society where diversity of thinking is encouraged, where there is respect for rule or law (and consequences for breaking it) and where there is a
very clear separation between religion and state.
These are the fundamental underpinnings of
every successful free market economy. India cannot progress economically with
one-hand tied behind its back. If Mr. Modi continues to allow apolitical
institutions like the army to be used by his political cronies as instruments
of faux nationalism, he will pay a very heavy price and so will India.
The bottom-line is that every month between
2011 and 2030, nearly 1 million Indians will
turn 18 and if India is unable to create well-paying jobs, no matter what else
Mr. Modi achieves, his tenure will be viewed as a failure.
In my estimation, there are couple of things Mr. Modi
must do to change the tenor of the current discourse in our nation and lay the
foundations for a more cohesive and inclusive India.
One. As one of the few politicians who understand the power of social
media, Mr. Modi must make an appeal to all digital lynch mobs to make clear that
this behaviour will not be tolerated and most certainly should not be done in
his name. He needs to be unequivocal in his condemnation of social media misogyny,
bullying and hooliganism, but stop short of passing new laws.
His needs to be a plea for civility without limiting free speech. It is about appealing to people’s good sense and getting them to take the higher ground, just like Mr. Modi did when he met with Nawaz Sharif and invited Pakistan’s SIT team (against the wishes of his own advisors).
His needs to be a plea for civility without limiting free speech. It is about appealing to people’s good sense and getting them to take the higher ground, just like Mr. Modi did when he met with Nawaz Sharif and invited Pakistan’s SIT team (against the wishes of his own advisors).
Two For a man who took office promising to attract foreign companies and investment by changing the backward, corrupt, bumbling and bureaucratic image of India, his government’s own PR has been nothing short of an unmitigated disaster.
In a world where perception is reality, the
BJP is increasingly being seen as a government of overreach. One that regularly tramples on civil liberties and constitutional
rights. Granted, some of this is overreaction, media bias and
orchestration by opposition parties, but truth is that beef bans have
been enforced in BJP-led states, independent documentary films have been banned, funding has been blocked for NGO’s, college students have been charged with sedition and there was an attempt to blacklist an independent
TV channel without judicial oversight. All of this has transpired
under Mr. Modi’s watch.
The point is that the world is watching and
taking note. Ultimately, nobody wants to invest
in a country where rule of law is regularly
trampled and sound economic policy decisions are overtaken by religious fanaticism and medieval
ideology.
Three. It is easy to forget that at sixty-nine
years we are still a young and nascent democracy. Witnessing the machinations
of the last two Congress governments, the Aam Aadmi party’s complete ineptitude
and the BJP’s Hindutva antics, it tells me that
to begin our evolution into a mature democracy we need to start creating
non-partisan institutions, independent think tanks, civilian ombudsman bodies
and numerous other apolitical and non-partisan groups that have the ability to
monitor our government’s activities and prevent overreaches.
Such institutions are the bedrock of every mature democracy. We have
seen how these independent organisations ultimately held the US government to
task over recent overreaches like the illegal Iraq invasion and the torture of
enemy combatants, and put a stop to intelligence agencies' infringing on
citizens’ rights through opaque domestic spying programs.
India needs this type of independent
oversight to hold government and elected officials accountable when they stray, as they all inevitably do.
Modi can become the PM who championed the creation of these public
institutions.
If he does not start to address these underlying
civil and social issues, all the good he continues to do – his recent bold move
to combat black money, removing foreign equity caps (from defense to railroads), launching Jan
Dhan Yojana (bank accounts for the poor), smart city initiatives, fast track
projects, divestment of PSU’S, women's empowerment programs – will all seem
inconsequential as they are overshadowed by beef bans and the use of antiquated
British laws.
I believe it comes down to a very simple
question that Modi needs to ask himself: What does he want his legacy to be?
Does he want to be remembered as the Prime
Minister who put India on the path to achieving its full potential - by
promoting free thought, gender equality and rule of law, or the PM who allowed
India to be reshaped by wildly misguided notions of Hinduism and pseudo-nationalism?
History will certainly judge how Mr. Modi chooses to answer, but long before that we will
decide at the ballot box.