India
Modi – Not The Leader India Wants, But The Leader India Needs

Prime Minister Narendra Modi being congratulated by President Pranab Mukherjee. Source hindustantimes.com
Much has been said about Narendra Damodar Modi before, during and after the Lok Sabha elections in India, which are a mammoth exercise of democratic clout that leave much of the world in awe. Many oppose this man over his “questionable” human rights record and his perceived right wing image. But most of India made an unmistakably unanimous decision to elect this man. Although the decisive mandate that the NDA has gotten is not a new phenomenon, given the situation that India finds herself in today, it’s crucial. Why? Because there’s a revolution coming. How do I know this? Lets see.
One might remember the recent article that Shashi Tharoor wrote for The Huffington Post that garnered a lot of attention India-wide merely because a Congressman had poured praises for Modi. This apparent act of blasphemy wasn’t received well by many within the Congress and the mindless cronies of the party couldn’t digest the fact that one of their own had praised their enemy even before the dust of their crushing defeat had settled. Despite Tharoor’s insistence that this piece wasn’t meant to imply an overnight transformation of Modi into a champion of secularism and inclusiveness, but rather meant to convey the fact that Modi is beginning to take steps in the right direction to repair his image among the activists and minorities, many within the Congress party still crucified Tharoor for it. Not all politicians were prepared to be as open minded as Tharoor to commend Modi on taking all the right decisions and inspiring those in Delhi from the very beginning. Now they lie in wait… waiting for him to make a mistake and to tear him to shreds. Until then, in their own words, “We’ll wait and see.”
But what must really be highlighted is the first speech Modi gave in the parliament on 11th June. It wasn’t merely a speech filled with bullet points from their election manifesto. It wasn’t a chest-beating session to demean the parties whose corpses BJP had crossed to reach the summit. It was a dream. A dream that Modi has clearly dreamt many times over and he was trying to persuade the nation to dream it as well. But what makes this speech different from all the others, one might ask?
The answer is simple. In this one, the idea of an “Andolan” i.e. Movement was introduced. Modi urged his fellow Indians to make the agenda of development a Jan-Andolan or People’s Movement. He drew parallels to the movements that Mahatma Gandhi inspired that helped India gain freedom from the shackles of foreign rule. He begged each and every Indian to live and work for the country. He said that even a person sweeping the streets must do it for the country and so should a teacher teaching a bunch of students.
Why is this approach noteworthy? Why should any of us care about these antiquated notions of “Desh-bhakti” and living and dying for the country, and so on? The answer is simple yet profound. Societies always need a purpose to move forward. Over many millennia, that purpose has been provided by religion, but in India’s current complicated religious turf, religious beliefs are causing more division than cohesion. In such a situation, the idea of working out of love for the motherland is the next best thing. All of us know in our heart of hearts, what the cold hard truth is. We do not really care about what happens to the nation, as long as we get what we want. We litter on roads, pay bribes to get our work done, take bribes to do our work, store money away in offshore bank accounts (in case we are the top 1% that has enough money to do so) and the list goes on. Our level of desensitization and callousness on various societal issues is already pushing the limits of saturation. Upper middle class families like to sit with their evening chai to discuss the vagaries of the political and bureaucratic system of India and how this nation is doomed. In such a situation, Modi wants to unite the nation and give us a common purpose, which is to work for the nation. To do everything we do, solely for the betterment of Bharat Mata, an approach that helped galvanize a sleeping nation into action and finally gave us our independence after much struggle. He said, “Desh ke liye mar nahi sake. Desh keliye jiyenge.” [We couldn’t die for the country, but we’ll live for it]. Although the image of Bharat mata is quite recent (came up when the nationalist movement was beginning to catch up among the masses), the concept of giving one’s life for the nation is entrenched in Indian culture. The Kshatriyas or the warrior class of our society would pledge to lay down their lives for Dharma or Duty and their matra-bhoomi or Motherland, to protect the lives of innocents. This concept was drudged up during the Indian Freedom movement and evolved into what we see today (mostly in our armed forces). If we as a nation are successfully able to adopt this ideology of “living and working for the country”, we work for not just ourselves but for everyone and that in turn goes around. Think of the possibilities!
This probably is the biggest reason why Modi is the leader India needs – to help along a paradigm shift in our society as a whole. Companies and organizations over the years that have made the greatest impact on a global level have done so because there was always a leader at the helm who held a vision. He clearly articulated the vision to his people. He made them dream the same dream. He made them want it as much as he did. And then they vigorously worked towards it overcoming all odds to achieve the desired result. This Lok Sabha speech was the first step towards creating tangible change – an exercise in making 1.4 billion people dream the dream of development and good lives. Modi spoke about capitalizing on the state of Sikkim’s impressive strides in the organic food industry and making the northeast a hub for organic food export, and collecting real time agri-data in the supply chain of food supply to avoid rotting of the surplus stock. He urged ministers to STOP PSYCHO-ANALYZING victims of rape and just shut their mouths and do their job to curb the dismal situation of women’s safety and security in India. This is probably where Modi shattered his right wing conformist image. As someone seen as a staunch proponent of Hindutva and an agent of the RSS, people expect the likes of Modi to blame the victims for rape and shift the blame onto movies and pornographic content on the internet. Instead, Modi emphasized on helping the victims of these heinous attacks and spoke of working effectively to curb them. He also asked ministers to think of themselves as “Janta ke Doot” or Agents of the people.
He made various points concerning development and governance, all inclusive and at regular intervals, re iterated that he will take every MP along; regardless of their party and that they will act as agents of the poor and underprivileged. They will work solely for the benefit of the repressed and help them ascend in society. He made no distinction on the basis of cast or religion. He made no mention along the lines of affirmative action, only action along the lines of poverty. Very importantly, he spoke about using education as a weapon against poverty and backwardness – something we all know, but nobody bothers to work on. And he highlighted the importance of burnishing the brand of “Skill India” to come out of the current image of “Scam India” – perhaps a testament to his pro-development image.
Modi’s cleanliness policy, his devotion to work and his insistence that other who work with him adopt the same work ethic, the value he gives to time management and personal health… All these make him an ideal manager. His vision makes him a great leader.
When all the aforementioned qualities converge into one person, he becomes the leader than India needs to unshackle herself and move ahead in the world. He becomes… Narendra Damodar Modi.
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