2 Years Of Modi Government Show We Should Be Worried
When a new government takes over, people have a lot of expectations. The government’s success is measured in terms of initiatives it has taken to permanently alter the fundamentals in social, political and intellectual domains.
Seeds of such changes are mostly sown in the first year of the assumption of power. Narasimha Rao ushered in economic reform by de-licensing industries in his first budget presentation, the results of which were far-reaching. Rajiv Gandhi brought in Sam Pitroda and created C-Dot. The present telecom revolution owes a lot to that initiative of Rajiv Gandhi. Barack Obama reached out to Muslims by giving a speech at Al-Azhar University, clearly making a policy statement that the US was no longer interested in continuing Bush’s foreign policy while hinting at the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Narendra Modi is completing two years in the government and without any exception, making efforts which have the potential to permanently change the fundamentals of the Indian system and its value structures.
The social system’s liberal tradition has been confronted with the one-dimensional behaviour pattern led by RSS’s ideological zealots. The killing of Akhlaq in Dadri by BJP leaders because of his alleged eating habits is symptomatic of that assertion. Beef has been banned in Maharashtra despite protests by minority communities. The Kerala House in Delhi, which has been serving beef for decades, was raided by the Delhi police. Haryana Chief Minister ML Khattar has advocated that girls should not wear jeans. “Love Jihad” and “Ghar Wapsi” are excuses to stop Hindus and Muslims from inter-mingling. Aamir Khan and Shah Rukh Khan have been hounded for statements on intolerance.
Activists Kalburgi and Pansare were killed by people who could not tolerate them speaking their minds. The social atmosphere has been so vitiated that the President of India, Pranab Mukherjee has publicly prodded the government many times about its responsibilities, but without any substantive results.