Tavleen Singh Narendra Modi Achievements Flaws Nehru

Let me begin by confessing that I did not think it was an ‘achievement’ for Narendra Modi to have become the longest serving prime minister in Indian history. And I found something puerile about the BJP ‘bhakti’ brigade on social media and in real life making comparisons with how long Jawaharlal Nehru served and the way they debated which year Nehru’s term should be counted from. Why is this relevant? Is it just me or have you also noticed that BJP trolls and Modi’s most ardent fans seem to have an inferiority complex when it comes to Nehru?

There is no reason for it. Modi’s achievements as Prime Minister have been extraordinary. Not to mention that, as your columnist has mentioned before, he succeeded in throwing into the garbage bin of history the entire English-speaking ruling class that worshipped Nehru. So why go on and on and on about a prime minister who has been dead for more than sixty years? Let him finally rest in peace.

Now let us return to talking about a prime minister who is still alive. Perhaps the most significant of Modi’s achievements is that since he became prime minister, his policies have lifted 250 million people out of poverty. In Nehru’s case, the sad truth is that there were as many poor Indian people when he became prime minister as when his long, long rule ended.

There are other things Modi can well be proud of. When he became prime minister, India had only 93 kilometres of access-controlled expressways; today there are 3,052 kilometres of expressways. The national highway network has grown by more than 60 per cent and the number of airports has more than doubled. The number of universities went up from 760 to 1,334 and instead of just seven All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) we have 23 today. Rural Indians now have access to toilets, domestic gas, bank accounts and free rations. Utilities like electricity and drinking water are more available than ever before as is the Internet.

While I was making a list of these achievements I came upon an editorial in this newspaper that reminded me of the reason why despite significant successes Modi is seen by many in India and in western democracies as an autocrat and not a democrat. The editorial was about the Delhi High court’s strictures against the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the case that was brought against the news portal, NewsClick. The founding editor of this newspaper spent seven months in jail because the ED charged him with non-bailable offences like money laundering and anti-national activities.

The Delhi High Court dismissed these charges and accused the Delhi police of ‘a gross abuse of the process of law.’ It said, ‘Aside from bald assertions of there being a criminal conspiracy, there is not a whisper of any incriminating allegation’. Harsh words but hopefully they will make the Prime Minister realise that by being allergic to dissenting opinions he is doing himself a disservice. We in the media should be telling him this more often but because of what happens to journalists who dare express dissenting opinions, we have all learned to pull our punches. While watching the news channels cover Modi’s big moment last week, what struck me was how they fell over themselves as they competed to sing the praises of the Prime Minister. This is not good for Indian journalism, but it is also not good for the man who guides the ship of India in these troubled times.

It was to the credit of Modi’s government that it did not arrest the founder of the Cockroach Janata Party when he landed in India despite the BJP’s social media trolls having maligned him brutally. It was also good that he was allowed to hold a rally in Delhi and more recently in Pune. He has so far stuck to raising only one demand, which is for the resignation of the education minister on the valid grounds that he failed to prevent yet another paper from leaking in the NEET exam. Dharmendra Pradhan has not deigned to explain why there is such a mess in the very centralised examinations that are conducted under him. And this could be because the disdain for dissenting voices has become the defining characteristic of the Modi government.

Dissent is the lifeblood of democracy. When it is crushed or treated with contempt, the damage done is incalculable. It does not manifest itself instantly but slowly and insidiously and in the end, it harms those who express dissenting opinions less than those who choose not to hear them. What happened to the editor of NewsClick should not have happened and should not happen ever to journalists who take a critical view of the government. The relationship between media and government in healthy democracies is necessarily adversarial because if we are on the same side, then what is the point of that fourth pillar of democracy?

In the twelve years that Modi has been prime minister that fourth pillar has become weaker than ever before. When the applause and the plaudits die down and the Prime Minister has time to reflect and brood, he would do himself a real service if he spent a moment or two thinking about why he is seen as an autocrat and why the democracy watchdogs of the world have demoted India to being an electoral autocracy.