The Case for Sonia Gandhi!

"Paradigm Shift" is an overused expression these days, but it correctly describes the changes that have taken place in India during the last six years of the BJP-led NDA rule. India has indeed changed beyond recognition during this period. The indicators of these changes are all over the place and one does not need to watch the "India Shining" advertisements swarming the television screens in India to see those changes.

The economic changes - thriving IT and IT-enabled sectors, burgeoning telecommunications, mushrooming automobile and auto-parts sectors, globally competitive pharmaceutical firms and an entertainment industry with an increasingly global reach, cranes and digging machines busy in the metros and highways of the country building flyovers, metros and national highways are the all-pervasive signs of an emerging India.

Nor are the signs limited to the economic sphere. India has made impressive gains on the diplomatic fronts as well. For the first time in its history, India can claim to have friendly relations with all the major powers of the world - US, USSR, China and Europe. Its relations with the Asean countries have never been friendlier. Indians have been able to forge a close relationship with Israel without adversely affecting their traditional friendly relationship with the Muslim countries; indeed they have improved their relations with Iran, Afghanistan as well as the former Soviet republics. To top it all, her relationship with her closest and the most troublesome neighbour, Pakistan, has never been better.

All this has contributed to the so-called "feel good" factor, which is undeniably there, at least among the young and educated. There is a new mood of self-confidence and can-do attitude in India.

A reader at this point may be excused for wondering whether this article is meant to praise this government or to bury it. This is because the devil needs to be given the credit where due before building a case for the opposition.
Taking first the economic successes of the current government. It has been said before but bears repetition that the current economic successes are the results of the reform agenda started much earlier. In the opinion of this author, the reform process started in India with the Rajeev Gandhi government. It is he who changed the govt. mindset with a radical reform of the income tax regime, from an impossible marginal tax rate of 95% to less than 50% in one big swoop. He brought in a fresh spirit to the government and enthused the young and the brightest in India with a vision of a modern and forward-looking India. He started using a portable personal computer back in the mid-80s when it was a rarity even in the West. He brought a team of non-politicians from various fields, such as Amitabh Bachan, Arun Singh and Arun Nehru to give a new look to the govt. He attracted high achiever NRIs like Sam Pitroda from ATT and Montek Singh Ahluwalia from the World Bank to bring in new ideas for telecommunications and economic policies. The real reform started, however, when the Rao-Manmohan Singh combine undertook a major turn from the Nehruvian socialism under the pressure of the World Bank. As Pakistan has done under Shaukat Aziz, Manmohan Singh used the pretext of the World Bank to push through the much needed reform agenda. Since then, all governments, including the left-front governments of Deve Gowda and Inder Gujaral have continued to carry forward the reform agenda. The BJP and its NDA allies can rightly claim to push forward the reform agenda without paying heed to the regressive elements in the BJP and the coalition parties. But they can claim no more.

The changes in the diplomatic fronts were also initiated in the earlier periods. It was Rajeev Gandhi once again who took the initiative and developed personal equations with world leaders, including Gorbachev of the USSR, Reagan of the US, Mulroney of Canada, Yasser Arafat of Palestine and even Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan. It was he again who broke the ice with China with a path-breaking visit to China. Even the much touted relationship with Israel started with a secret RAW-Mossad collaboration during the Indira Gandhi period, enhanced by a secret visit by Moshe Dayan during the Morarji Desai government and an official recognition by the Narsimha Rao govt. Even the look East policy was initiated during the Rao-Manmohan Singh period.
The point of the above perspective is that while full credit goes to the NDA govt. and Vajpayee personally for vigorously pursuing the economic and diplomatic initiatives started by the earlier governments, they can claim no originality in this regard. These policies will continue regardless of whether or not the NDA is returned to power.

Where the BJP led govt. has performed poorly is on the communal front. The govt. has gone all out to saffronise Indian history and the education system. These changes are meant to demonise Muslim Indians and paint them as unpatriotic and disloyal to the country. It has described the Muslim rule in India as one of the dark period without any redeeming features. One could fairly accuse the Nehruvian/Marxist historians of doing exactly the opposite during the earlier era - namely to paint Muslim kings as secular rulers who did not discriminate between their Hindus and Muslim subjects. Excesses of Muslim rulers were whitewashed either as concoction of the British rulers or, where the embedded Hindu memories were too strong such as the hardships caused by Mahmood Ghaznavi and Aurangzeb, present them as acts of individuals which had nothing to do with the quran or sharia. The earlier whitewashing, though wrong, could at least be attributed to a noble purpose of building a tolerant and secular society. No such excuse can be given for the present systematic attempts to distort history with the sole objective of demonizing a community already suffering from an image problem.
But even this attempt at saffronising the history could have been condoned if Gujarat riots had not happened. Sporadic communal riots have occurred in independent India throughout its history but Gujarat riots were different in character; the only parallel being the anti-Sikh riots in Delhi during 1984. The state’s complicity in brutalities against minorities was similar in both cases. Narendra Modi’s infamous statement about Newton’s third law of motion to justify the Ahmedabad riots could also be compared to Rajeev Gandhi’s infamous statement about the earth trembling when a big tree falls. Rajeev Gandhi’s reaction could possibly be explained, though not justified, by his political immaturity and the emotional imbalance of a young son caused by the brutal murder of his mother; there was no such mitigating factor in the case of Narendra Modi who was simply motivated by cynical electoral considerations.

While the primary responsibility for the failure to protect minorities lies with the Gujarat government, the Central government, too, failed to follow its "Raj Dharma". Modi was, after all, the personal nominee of the BJP’s central leadership and it chose not to take any action against him and, indeed, has frequently used him since then to seek votes in other regional elections. If Mr. Vajpayee had acted against Modi in Gujarat, I and a significant section of Indian Muslims might have supported him despite the other failings of the government. But given its record, this NDA government needs to be defeated if India is to remain a secular or even a tolerant society in which all citizens can feel to have a safe and secure future.

The case for Sonia Gandhi, however, goes beyond the failure of the NDA government and the absence of any other viable alternative to replace it. Sonia’s record as opposition leader has been quite responsible and dignified. She has never opposed the government for the sake of opposition and has generally supported it in all those economic and diplomatic endeavors with which she agreed. She has acted responsibly in her meetings with all the visiting leaders and presented a national perspective whenever on a foreign visit. She was a very reluctant entrant to politics but, once in it, she has given her heart and soul to it and has matured politically from a recluse sphinx to a most accessible politician quite at ease with the masses. She has tried to cleanse the Congress of its most corrupt elements and has chosen clean regional leaders like Shiela Dixit and Antony and has not hesitated to fire those who proved dishonest. She has now also recognized the need for cooperating with other parties and has built successful coalitions with regional parties, including bringing back the likes of Sharad Pawar and Chidambram who had left the party earlier because of differences with her.

I have decided to deal with the question of her origin to the last because I consider it to be a non-issue. The Indian constitution explicitly does not admit any discrimination on the basis of race or country of birth and Sonia Gandhi has the same rights as any other Indian citizen. If anything, she proved her allegiance to India by consciously choosing to become its citizen instead of moving to the safety of foreign shores despite the very real dangers to her life and the life of her children. Having made the decision, she has done everything to adopt the language, food, dress and culture of the land of her choice and to serve what she believes to be her family legacy.

So, if I had a vote, it would go to Sonia!