Lessons from last 30 years, Congress creates, BJP-RSS destroys, we always bounce back.
The dramatic start to the 90s
In 1990 on a very rainy day in August I started studying engineering at Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University. I remember my father dropped me off and told my seniors to rag me and make a man out of me. Like bulls on seeing a red rag the seniors went about the job and taught me enough MCs and BCs to use in sentences for a life time.
However the initial stay at college was a short one as the country as VP Singh the backstabbing Prime Minister of India announced on 7th August 1990 that he would implement Mandal report in the country. Immediately there were agitations across the country with upper caste Hindu students agitating at this sudden halving of job opportunities, in typical BHU style there was some stone throwing and firing and the college was closed sine die and we had to leave for home. From convent school in salubrious Dehradun to Banaras Hindu University to Mandal agitations the initiation into the adulthood and virulent India was swift and strangely smooth. Maybe it was preparation for things to come.
The college was closed for about four weeks, and when it reopened, Rajiv Goswami immolated himself agitating against Mandal and Advani ji was plotting to go on a Rath Yatra to reach Ayodhya to mobilize the Hindus and dent the promise created by Mandal jobs for the VP Singh in the Backward Class. The Yatra left Somnath and there were huge crowds everywhere. The Yatra was a success in its purpose wherever it went there were riots and people died in the name of Ram and the mythical mandir. Laloo Prasad Yadav in Bihar and Mulayam Singh Yadav in Uttar Pradesh stopped the Kar Sevaks, using force. There were videos of the agitation and dead bodies of Kar Sevaks floating in the river, shown to us by RSS folks to inflame passion in us, so that we would become angry and hurt Hindus. (Yeah RSS’ propaganda pre-dates social media) Strangely we couldn’t care less. What we cared about was the sine die that followed the Mandir riots as Banaras erupted in Hindu Muslim riots.
For us neither Mandir mattered nor Mandal mattered as we were assured of a job the moment we entered the college and a promise of a secure and prosperous life in United States of America. Most of classmates veered towards a life in USA by getting admission to the US colleges through GRE and GMAT, as India became a country in turmoil.
In late 1990 VP Singh made way for Chandra Shekhar as the country grappled Mandir, Mandal, and Advani, and the folks at VHP kept stirring the communal cauldron, leading to a situation where there was perpetual chaos in the country where riots did not even make news, as there were so many of them. Hindus were divided among themselves, Muslims fought Hindus, students fought the government and the perpetual never ending caste wars among the Hindus. In the midst of all this mid-term elections were announced for May 1991 and the Third-front government was again on a verge of becoming the largest political block, and then Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in Sriperumbudur a blast so huge that the remains of Rajiv Gandhi were difficult to find.
The blast changed the course of elections and brought a minority government led by Congress’ PV Narsimha Rao in the administration and this changed the fate of India forever. PVNR brought Dr. Manmohan Singh as his finance minister and on July 24, 1991 Dr. Manmohan Singh changed the fate of India with the Industry Minister P.J. Kurien putting the new Industrial policy to the floor with the words:
“Sir, I beg to lay on the table a statement (Hindi and English versions) on Industrial Policy”
From a country in turmoil the country became hopeful. India changed overnight, gone was the focus on politics, in came business. Some of the prominent changes were
- Out went the permit raj, 80% of the industries were delicensed. Prior approvals for capacity expansion were removed.
- Imports were made easy, and almost open to each and everything. Duties on imports were reduced. Whatever we see in India by way of foreign brands and outlets was started because of this policy.
- Foreign investment was liberalized. Most companies were welcome to invest in India.
- Restrictions on foreign exchange were dramatically eased.
- Bank Interest was liberalized and RBI no longer dictated the rates, private banks were encouraged to be setup to create competition and reach of banking in India.
- Capital markets were freed, SEBI was setup.
In a nutshell any Indian was free to do business as he wanted without restrictions, and the biggest beneficiaries was the service industry, with the likes of Azim Premji, Narayan Murthy, Shiv Nadar laying the foundation of India as the world’s software service provider. This led to the first wave of entrepreneurship in India. The change was not immediate though, it took a while for the trickle to become a flood. Most of our current policies is just a tweak of what happened in 1991, with no major changes happening in the past 30 years.
This change of business did not sit well with LK Advani and BJP who pushed against the liberalization vehemently, and the restless Advani again raised the bogey of Babri Masjid, which PVNR let him break on 6th December 1992, it was a masterstroke which took away Sangh’s most emotive issue and at the same time killed Indian National Congress. This move broke INC by off putting its Muslim support base and sending them to Mulayams and Laloos for years to come and still ongoing, Muslims lost trust in Congress. Something that the Congressis have not been able to get back till date, so if INC does not celebrate PVNR’s life or death you really can’t blame them, he was complicit in the destruction of mosque and establishment of the path to Hindutva.
Destruction of the mosque surprisingly did not bring the massive repercussion that was anticipated, almost as if everybody had accepted that it was inevitable and the business went on as usual.
Between 1992 and 1994, the recruiting scene in IIT BHU changed wildly, from Tata Steel being the largest recruiter we started having the emerging software companies break out as the largest recruiters with Infosys leading the way by recruiting by the dozens. In 1993 we had Infosys, Citicorp (Now known as iFlex/Oracle), COSL, Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) and the same trend continued in 1994 with the same organizations returning to hire in larger numbers. Salaries being offered in 1994 was more than Rs. 10,000 and stocks in companies (Infosys had a turnover of around Rs. 25 crores then and was offering stock). People were not taking on offers instead choosing to emigrate to USA or join IIMs, half the people who were offered jobs in 1994 by Infosys did not join Infosys (I don’t know how many are kicking themselves for missing the biggest stock growth in India). Suddenly people who never imagined they would be buying two-wheeelers were thinking of buying cars while working in India, Indian politics and economy had untangled themselves. It was a gold rush, all you had to do was to appear for a job interview and they would give you a job in Information Technology, it was that easy. From a country fighting wars with itself, India became an aspirational country. Foundation of megacities like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune and Gurgaon were laid.
In 1996 Congress lost the elections and was reduced to 140 seats, BJP was the largest party but it was unable to get support for more constituents to form the government, Congress supported HD Deve Gowda and he formed the government on 28th May 1996, in less than a year he had a fallout with Congress and was replaced with I K Gujral who was appointed Prime Minister in April 1997 and lasted for 11 months before another General Elections was announced.
The big disappointment: Vajpayee era
BJP became the largest party in 1998 and the great orator Atal Bihari Vajpayee, seen as a liberal and democratic and mild mannered enough to run a coalition without kowtowing the hardline agenda of RSS was made the PM. Atal Bihari Vajpayee formed another coalition government (second one after the ill-fated 13 day government in 1996). This was an uneasy coalition where none barring the Shiv Sena had the same Hindu Rashtra mindset as BJP. The first term of Vajpayee was an iffy uncertain term with no focus on economy, instead focusing on Nuclear Test and image improvement by doing a Lahore Summit with Pakistan (What is with BJP leaders and their quest to create a legacy — unsuccessfully), and then Jayalalitha pulled the plug and the government was reduced to a caretaker government.
In May 1999 Kargil war happened with Pakistan, in which India emerged victorious and Vajpayee/Advani led BJP became the largest party and governed with a more stable coalition to govern the nation for another 5 years (from 1999–2004).
Notable is that while all this was happening in the 1990s the Indian economy continued to grow and prosper, not at a blazing speed but at a steady rate. While the politics remained in turmoil with the push and pull of coalition politics, the economy between 1991–1999 continued to grow at pace faster than before, as the delicensing regime ushered by Dr. Manmohan Singh continued to bear fruit. When the ball gets rolling the government becomes incidental.
The first couple of years of second term of BJP’s second term were lackluster and listless (like all BJP governments are) and then Modi decided to look the other way in 2002 in Gujarat. A man touted as gentle, kind and liberal failed to act to save lives, he chose not to sack Modi (reasons are unimportant) and that was the end of his goodwill as exemplified by the lack of crowd at his funeral.
Vajpayee unable to remove Modi had to resort to economic measures. His three big measures were:
- A big push into infrastructure, by the creation of Golden Quadrilateral, it gave a big fillip to the infrastructure industry with the demand for stone, cement and steel going through the roof and also lead to the expansion of some cities at an unprecedented pace.
- Telecom was liberalized with the change of licensing model from licensing fee to revenue share, leading to much of the digitalization of India. Mukesh Ambanis Monsoon Dhamaka was the seed for the all the telecom and internet revolution that we see in India.
- Vajpayee started the regime of low interest rates, with the benchmark lending rate going down to 5%, one of the lowest in the history of India. You could get a housing loan at 7.25% only slightly higher than the rates available today.
However this failed to enthuse the rural voters and the spectacularly disastrous “India Shining” Campaign contributed to Vajpayee’s downfall.
The surprising sardar: Manmohan Singh era.
In the ensuing elections, INC was back in power after much drama, Sonia Gandhi appointed Manmohan Singh as the PM. Manmohan Singh in UPA1 did not lay emphasis on creating new economic policies or completion of the infrastructure projects started by Vajpayee government. The buoyancy created by the dying years of Vajpayee’s government kept the growth rate high. No major policy changes were required to keep India growing. In hindsight if Manmohan Singh had assessed the growth of China’s manufacturing muscle correctly and assessed the reasons for it, India could have been set on a path of even faster development than it did during his tenure.
Instead in UPA1 Manmohan Singh as the PM focused on social security reforms and laying the foundation of a more open government. In 2005 he brought in
- MGNREGA, arguably India’s most important social welfare scheme, and also the program that brought INC back for another term in 2009.
- Right to Information Act, which brought an openness in the way we could access information about the government, also the tool BJP-RSS used to bring down the government in 2014. Also the tool BJP now has neutered.
- UID (AADHAR) was ushered in to track and trace beneficiaries and reduce the pilferage.
Manmohan Singh being the astute administrator he was knew that all the policies for India’s economic growth in place were enough to keep India stable. What was needed now was to improve the safety net for the poor and how to make the administration framework more efficient, which is what he worked towards and somewhat succeeded. The growth in this period was huge, lifted by all the late push done by Vajpayee’s government.
He was back in 2009, on the back of MNREGA and stability in the country, as BJP-RSS did not kill many and there were no Masjids left to demolish. BJP-RSS had no agenda. Singh continued working bringing in even more social sector reforms like Right to Education, Land Acquisition, Lokpal etc. These were done to create a social security for the India’s disadvantaged and neglected.
Surprisingly everything was quiet in the country, there was peace and even happiness in places. Land prices were going up, house prices were shooting through the roof in places like Gurgaon, people were buying cars. Even people like me who never imagined in the 90s that they would buy cars were buying luxury cars. Life was good. GDP growth rate was high and growing.
And then Jaitley, RSS and BJP struck. In 2012 when everything was peaceful RSS-BJP seized the opportunity with the Nirbhaya tragedy, a narrative was created that every woman in India was unsafe, nothing has changed after these massive protests, women in India are still very unsafe.
When this was about to die down, with the help of Anna Hazare, Prashant Bhushan and Arvind Kejriwal the fake bogey of corruption cases was created. A narrative was created that the UPA2 was the most corrupt in the history of India, coal scam, telecom scam and all such imaginary scams were created in which nothing was ever found by the courts. A bogey was created that setting up a Lok Pal would put an end to all this. Something which has not been done till date in earnestness. Governance came to halt, the Manmohan Singh government froze and economic growth fell down the stairs in the last three years of Manmohan Singh government.
Lack of political leadership in Congress led to a vacuum where no counter narrative was created and the silence of the party was taken as complicity in the scams. Congress believed that people will see through the lies and trust them and did not put in the effort required to negate the feeling of distrust among people. Having been fed on high growth they underestaimted the desire of citizens of India for even a higher growth. Narendra Modi promised the moon to the voters (which he never delivered nor can ever deliver). In the era of social media, compromised media and bombastic oratory of Narendra Modi, it was a cake walk for BJP in the Lok Sabha elections of 2014. Congress ended up with their lowest tally ever, Arvind Kejriwal got Delhi and people of India were taken for a ride of their lives which they refused to acknowledge till the bodies started floating in the Ganges.
The Disastruous Leadership of Modi
Modi was elected with the hope that Acche Din will be here and we would all by richer by manifold. Nothing of that sort happened. Instead what we got was an ineffective leader who probably does not know how to govern. With an absolute majority of their own in the Lok Sabha, Modi, BJP and RSS focused on the cow, Muslim alienation and reimagination of history. By way of economic policies Modi government from 2014 to 2019 did nothing substantial that would help the people of India grow economically.
Instead the government focused on creating fake narratives of growth and action, which was ostensibly to help the poor. Demonetisation, crackdown on businesses were all PR shows aimed at telling the poor and disadvantaged that the government is against the rich and for the poor. Adani and the likes continued to flourish and grow while the upper middle class and middle class was squeezed. Modi was always on TV and on radio shows creating an illusion that he is working very hard for the masses, wherein in reality he neither had the aptitude nor the inclination to work for the country. The government was reduced to one big PR company.
By handing out paltry amounts to farmers and creating an imaginary battle with Pakistan Modi was able to get himself relected in 2019. It is surprising that a government which did literally nothing in five years except create fake narratives was able to get relected with an even higher margin. Complacency of opposition (if you can call the moteley crew of parties — opposition), and the moribund Congress contributed significantly to the relection of Modi.
Relected with even bigger margin in 2019 the ineptitude of Modi became aptitude, he started believing that whatever he is doing is right and that is what the people of India want. The focus now shifted from creating an illusion of work and governance to creating a Hindu Rashtra. A temple in Ayodhya is being built even as I write this. Cow ministries are being created in all BJP and even in some Congress ruled states, Love-Jihad laws are being drafted everywhere and passed. All kinds of protests are being throttled, draconian laws created to put people in jail for protesting or uttering things against the government. From a flawed democracy we became a democracy eh?
Governance and economic growth, the idea of it or even the illusion of it was lost. All this would have not mattered had Corona not struck India and Modi. In wave 1 we implemented a disastruous lockdown which killed our economy, countless people perished walking home and we were banging thalis like we are on Idiot Idol. Strangely things were under control, people did not die in large numbers.
And when things are under control Modi likes to take credit and declare victory. The one thing which we needed the most — vaccines was exported to other nations while a billion people in India waited patiently and in hope to get the vaccine. While the government was busy doing what it does best — polishing the image of the leader, the virus and people of India had other plans. We started partying like no tomorrow, weddings were held with hundreds participating, no opportunity for earning Punya were being left behind. The wave 2 struck. People were left gasping for air — Air the thing that we take for granted. There was no oxygen anywhere, no cylinders, no oxygen plants and people were just dying (still dying while i write this). India became a cremation ground and rivers dumping ground for bodies. Something that Modi had never anticipated. And as an ineffective leader he had no answers, no response, no nothing. While the official death toll stands at 270,000, it is estimated that more than 5 million people would perish by the time we get enough people vaccinated to stop this mayhem.
And yes the economy and dreams of average Indians also collapsed and died. In today’s India nobody dreams of a bigger house or a car, they just want all their loved ones to survive.
Can Modi lose, will BJP-RSS be decimated in 2024, this does not depend on this Virus and tragedy of course. It depends on how the opposition is able to create a narrative out of the Corona tragedy that can change the course of India. I am hopeful India will bounce back and BJP-RSS will be put in cold storage for years to come.
