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Discovery of New India

Independence Day this year was celebrated as Sankalp Parva. The Prime Minister exhorted his 125 crore countrymen ~ no gender…

Discovery of New India

(Photo: IANS)

Independence Day this year was celebrated as Sankalp Parva. The Prime Minister exhorted his 125 crore countrymen ~ no gender neutrality in the printed versions ~ to come together, strive in spirit and soul to achieve the pledge for building a New India by 2022.

From August 15 to 30, BJP MPs are undertaking Sankalp Yatras in their respective constituencies and designated districts to inform people about the Government’s ongoing programmes against the entrenched maladies of corruption, terrorism, poverty and divisiveness. This follows close on the heels of the Tiranga Yatras by BJP MPs to mark the 75th anniversary of the Quit India Movement.

Parliament had passed a unanimous resolution on that momentous occasion. “We , the representatives of more than 125 crore people, resolve to take along every citizen in working towards building a nation as envisioned by Mahatma Gandhi and other freedom-fighters by 2022 when we will celebrate the 75th anniversary of our Independence.

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We shall remain committed and dedicated to build a strong, prosperous, clean and glorious India, which is free of corruption. We are committed to the welfare of all sections and to promote harmony and patriotism”. During the related discussion in the Lok Sabha, the Prime Minister had sought to know from the MPs whether the next five years could be dedicated to the pledge of Karenge aur Kar ke Rahenge ~ we will do and we’ll make sure we will do it. There is, of course, no record of any formal response to that tough poser.

President Ramnath Kovind in his pre-Independence Day address to the nation also made a strong pitch for New India and, interestingly, highlighted for the first time the concept of Integral Humanism, propounded by the Sangh ideologue, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya.

The larger narrative was about an egalitarian and compassionate society that rested firmly on a deep partnership between the citizen and Government. It is not unreasonable in the world’s largest democracy often fractious and conflicted, to infer that there may be 125 crore interpretations of the challenging “how-to-redeem” aspects of the Sankalps, Resolutions and exhortations to craft a New India in a mind-boggling time squeeze of five years. These may be sharply careening or smooth-sailing years.

There’s no knowing. Since this is not to be confused in any way with a new fangled variant of the recently cremated fiveyear Plan which had quite simply failed to deliver, it is crucial to dwell on its prospects for realization through existing structures, institutions, systems and processes, without going through the mandatory exercise of effecting concomitant, farreaching changes.

More critical is the ability to get a handle on the evidently autonomous, yet increasingly volatile socio-political ecosystem, which, at the end of the day, determines whether the best of intentions flounder or fly. If major reengineering is in the works ~ unobstrusively ~ that’s good news.

If not, it will probably mean more of the same old failed practice of foisting an unrealistically hefty raft of additional schemes and programmes on an already overburdened ~ and by many accounts ~ a somewhat dispirited and bruised bureaucracy, uncertain of its own role in the post-2022 New India. Unflinching, unassailable political will does go a rather long way, as the enforcement of big-ticket policy shifts of demonetisation and GST have irrefutably demonstrated in the last one year.

Though there were many doubts, the entire administrative apparatus proved it had the innate professionalism needed to cope with the most extreme challenges in spite of the acknowledged and distinct deficit of lack of thorough preparedness. Though this diatribe kept being pelted at it relentlessly from some quarters, it soldiered on regardless and is continuing to do so, in what is undeniably totally uncharted territory.

These achievements will definitely find a pride of place in our governance archives. Hopefully, they will also make the grade as global success stories. The essential strength of Team India that the Prime Minister unfailingly flags, is best exemplified here.

However, as distinct from most of the core components of New India, as now enunciated, demonetisation and GST are two clearly defined policy initiatives which have been assigned well delineated performance indicators and key outcomes, amenable both to close tracking and on-course corrections. Therefore, in 2022, it will not be difficult to draw up their score cards.

To attempt score cards on the same time-scale for corruption-free India, terrorism-free India, poverty-free India, communalism-free India, casteism-free India, clean-India will not be easy unless there is a nuanced and detailed drill-down to get to their deliverables in plain, no-nonsense and, most importantly, measurable terms. The translation of “striving in spirit and soul to accomplish the pledge for building a New India” into comprehensible administrative terminology should be taken in hand right away and put out in the public domain for very wide consultation for it to mean anything of strong substance to we, the so fondly recalled on almost every occasion, 125 crores.

For starters, we have the opportunity to participate in the New India Manthan, test ourselves with a quiz, share ideas and much more on http://newindia.in So we must necessarily carve some gestation-time without appearing to be in too much of a rush. Hasten slowly is the unstated suggestion.

The only problem is that this refuses to square with a telescoped time-line in which to attain the critical escape ~ velocity to reach New India. Since Sankalps cannot be simply forgotten once uttered and they must be honoured, can we turn to our elected representatives in Parliament to rise to the occasion, in perfect sync with their solemn Resolution of 9 August 2017? (The indirectly elected ones can be counted out for this purpose, going by the recent unsavoury experiences in Gujarat and Haryana).

Should they be ~ or more appropriately, can they be ~ administered the Sankalp-test? They are supposed to be the embodiment of our hopes and aspirations. It is another matter that we barely see any signs of those attributes! The past experience has been mixed and largely unsatisfactory.

Dr B R Ambedkar, Chairman of the Drafting Committee of the much venerated Constitution, while summing up and reflecting on it, had not hesitated in expressing his reservations that without requisite efforts to nurture parliamentary democracy, it may collapse. Almost uncanny and prescient, in the present backdrop. It would have been amusing, had it not been shameful, to have the Prime Minister upbraid his party colleagues and warn them that their “leisure days were over “as many had been found absenting themselves from Parliament during the last Monsoon session.

They needed to be put under watch by party president, Amit Shah, to ensure that they performed their basic responsibilities. It may have some effect only because of the threat of dropped nominations in 2019. No desh-bhakti here! Only unambiguous, unalloyed selfinterest and unfettered enjoyment of entitlements. So we come, disappointingly enough, yet again, to the familiar governance cul-de-sac.

To expect the creaking judicial machinery ~ which takes decades to decide that cases lack even basic evidentiary worth ~ to uphold and actualize New India, is to function on a hollow default-mode, which cannot be acceptable any more. Sankalp aur bhi… will that be the best way forward? We are left wondering many wonders.

(The writer is a retired IAS officer and comments on governance issues)

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