Dr Sudershan Kumar
Riding on a huge mandate, Narendra Modi, on 30th May 2019 took the oath of the office and secrecy at a mega function held at Rashtrapati Bhawan.
Shri Narendra Modi was sworn in as the 15th prime minister of India along with his council of ministers in the presence of Heads of State of BIMSTEC countries and other eminent personalities in a glittering ceremony where nearly 7000 guests from various fraternities were invited. The results of the 17th Lok sabha were declared on 23 rd May 2019. These general elections proved historic for Bharatiya Janta Party as it superseded it’s previous performance and not only crossed its previous tally of 282 seats but NDA as a whole secured more than 350 seats. This massive Modi Magic not only decimated the Indian National Congress but also rattled the opposition parties and stunned the whole world. Consequently during his victory speech at Bharatiya Janta Party Headquarters, New Delhi, Narendra Modi vowed to devote “every moment” of his time and “every fibre” of his being towards India and the people of India. Raising his old slogan Sab Ka Saath, Sab Ka Vikas with a new addition ” Sab Ka Vishwas” he reiterated and endorsed his commitment towards his fellow Indians and with all humility expressed gratitude towards his countrymen for again imposing faith in him.
Further, on this historic occasion, refuted the politics of casteism further classifying the masses into two broad categories irrespective of caste, creed and religion. He also dedicated himself for the upliftment of the poor and coined another slogan National Ambition and Regional Aspiration (NARA). Moreover these elections reached a new milestone as people from all walks of life came out under the scorching sun to caste their votes. Author had the opportunity of interaction with certain cross section of people in few states. The interaction reverberated the Modi magic once again which was facilitated by the success of various schemes launched by his Government over the last five years and tells the tale that these schemes have gone well among the rural and urban masses of this country irrespective of caste, creed and religion. Going through the pages of history, even in the pre and post independence era, many schemes/ programs were launched with an aim towards upliftment of the downtrodden and improvement of the socio economic conditions of poor. Prominent among these were the rural Reconstruction Program by Mahatma Gandhi, the Sriniketan Experiment, Guru Gram Experi-ment Rural Reconst-ruction Programme at Baroda and Frika Development Scheme. The Gandhian Programme of human activity in various fields, proved to be a great success despite the meagre resources and paucity of infrastructure and facilities at that time. This could be attributed to the mass appeal of Mahatma Gandhi and his connect with the masses.
Similarly, Sriniketan Programme initiated by Rabinder Nath Tagore in 1920 for the all round improvement of the village was a great endeavor with the objective of alleviation of all the problems of villages in terms of agriculture, improvement of their lives stocks and formation of cooperatives etc. Tagore believed in self help, mutual help and involvement of people from the villages. Therefore all these programs were initiated with bottom up approach and proved to be stepping stone in transforming the society during British era. Even after independence, successive Governments in seven decades launched a large number of schemes/ programs aimed at improvement of socio economic condition of the poor, yet a lot more is required to ameliorate the rural urban divide. The Schemes like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), Rural Ministry Schemes (RHS) Integrated Water Shed Programme( I- WPD) Pradhan Mantri Grahmeen Yojana and many others had great ideas but lacked transparency and political will. Subsequently after interaction with the local people it emerged that the fruits of these schemes have not reached to the poorest of poor in remote villages and the tall claims of the Government have fallen flat. On the contrary, schemes launched by Modi Government during his first tenure like providing gas connection to the poor ladies, building toilets in villages for rural masses, electricity in villages, Jan Dhan Yojana, start up programs and many others including the much publicized Ayushman Bharat for deprived rural families were triumphant in touching the nerve of rural masses.
This was primarily instrumental in giving massive mandate to the Modi Government. However in the second term a herculean task still awaits for the new Government in the form of many indomitable challenges and intricate issues both at the national and international level. These issues includes, sustenance of schemes launched in the previous tenure, connectivity between rural areas and remote rural areas, rural areas and urban areas, farmers’ distress, quality education, health care at rural areas, launching of innovative start up programs in rural areas for generation of employment etc. Besides millions of youth across the country have rested their hopes on this new government that it will give wings to their aspirations, ambition and expectations. Prime minister Narendra Modi has already made his intend clear and sent out a message to the young voters which says “Fulfill Promise And Deliver”. Work in this direction has already commenced on a war footing with an aim to handle economic growth and employment together with national security. The fulfillment of tasks set up in 100 days agenda is a first step in this direction. But a lot more needs to be done at the grass root level and to involve the masses and the party cadre, is imperative for the successful accomplishment of the schemes. The strategy has to be identical to that launched by Mahatma Gandhi and Rabinder Nath Tagore, that is the bottom up approach. One such scheme that needs a mention here is the ” Ujjwala yojana” in which free gas connection is provided to the poor households . The modus operandi of providing subsequent free gas cylinders to the poorest should be such that the cylinders must reach them hassle free. Besides, efforts must be made to raise the source of income in definite time frame other wise the scheme will lose its significance steadily and will die its natural death.
The poor will subsequently revert to their age old method of burning wood charcoal for cooking in chulhas. Furthermore among the many issues which need redressal by the new government, one most important issue is the deplorable state of road connectivity with rural areas. The roads either do not exist or even if they exist, the condition is pathetic. The need of the hour is to lay stress on the enhancement of connectivity in rural areas. This connectivity will facilitate hassle free outreach of basic amenities to villagers. Secondly, there is paucity of minimal infrastructure in the villages. The masses in rural villages are deprived of quality education, basic medical care. Although the government has established schools but they lack the basic amenities in terms of infrastructure. Also at certain places there is deficiency of teachers in schools. To prosper as a nation we need to cultivate the young minds, provide them quality education and innovative ideas. We can have mobile schools on rotational bases with incentives to teachers for serving in rural areas so that the children get the quality education and they remain in villages instead of shifting to urban area. Similarly, many pioneering and innovative approaches is the need of the hour for providing medical health care to their door step. Providing telemedicine facilities at villagers door step will be an important initiative.
Another inevitable area which needs focus is farmers’ distress. Although the previous and present govts. have tried to offer lolly pops to farmers by announcing loan waivers or other incentives. But none of them have gone to the root cause of their plight. In fact in India the farmers are not getting the proper remuneration of their agriculture produce as compared to other countries. In USA, and other European countries farmer get, nearly 80-85 percent of their agriculture produce. But the Indian farmers are always at the receiving end as they don’t get the minimum due share and the rest goes to the middle men. This role of of middle men needs to be curtailed although this requires bold and big decision and the country needs to build a consensus on that. Besides accessibility of the poor farmer towards high quality seeds, manures and other essential items required for growing agriculture products is absolutely imperative. Besides farmers must also be provided with training for use of technologies in their fields for bumper production.
Last but not the least, important initiation of start up programs for employment generation, tapping of natural resources for promotion of tourism, must also be given due weightage. Finally the detailed road map for fulfilling the promises made in manifesto must be ensured.
The author is of the view that the results of this general election is an eye opener for all political parties that the common masses have disapproved the negative caste or religion based campaign. The masses and younger minds are giving weightage to development and solution of core issues. They believe more in delivery than promises. There fore the above stated issues will always remain as core issues among Indian masses. For implementation at grass root level the involvement of public in the form of mass movement is absolutely essential with clear vision, focused approach and definite road map. This will be possible only through empowerment of Panchayats, independent monitoring by village guides and accountability of authorities and transparency in system.
(The author is former Director General and Special Secretary DRDO, MoD GoI)
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