Modi's Pokhran Moment: A Disruptive Governance at Play
- In Current Affairs
- 01:27 PM, Nov 11, 2016
- Raghav Mittal
If Prime Minister Vajpayee stunned the world by undertaking the Nuclear blasts of May 1998 transforming India to a full-fledged nuclear state, Prime Minister Modi went a step ahead in bombing the termite of corruption securing his very Pokhran moment. The bold move of demonetizing the legal tenders of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes estimated to be valuing between Rs 14 lakh crore to Rs 16 lakh crore shall go a long way in India's all out fight against graft which has infested the very foundations of Indian establishment right to the last millimeter of delivery.
Containing terror funding & checking fake currency notes can be accorded the tertiary and quarternary motivations behind this move, but the leitmotif is undoubtedly to nail down the menace of graft. Corruption affects delivery of good governance big time despite the burning of the mid-night oil at the highest echelons.
A man of sheer discipline having a profound systems driven approach, Prime Minister Modi has led this historic charge with his characteristic dispassionate demeanor. Though the ban on high denomination currency notes was the clarion call of the supercharged electoral campaign of 2014 particularly amplified by Baba Ramdev, the underlying operational complexities requiring months of elaborate secretive preparations. The courage to communicate this move to the billion plus nation was something which a resolute leader of immense credence, ingenuity and vision could only have accentuated.
The observers had been seeing it coming, nonetheless. The Aadhar linked Jandhan overdrive which attained the honor of being biggest financial inclusion programme, laid the firm foundations of an accountable and traceable economy whereby every transaction trail can be monitored. In a democracy, the sheer numbers of have-nots at the bottom of the pyramid keep the pilferage of anomalies going on for those at the helm of affairs making their moolah unhindered. Jandhan somewhere plugged this fountainhead of democratic deception. Defying the oracles of gloom & doom within the system, the Prime Minister went ahead in empowering each of his countrymen with a formal mechanism to transact.
Streamlining the vast spectrum of social benefits deterministically to the intended beneficiaries using this newly acquired transaction superhighway galvanized and greased not just the system at large but also created the much-needed faith and trust amidst the masses at large which in hindsight seems to be the preparatory phase for this major drive to detox the economy. The cascading effect of this detox would be visible soon. This will range from curbing the large-scale graft at the delivery layer to that of reformulating the entire strategy to fund elections from ill-gotten wealth and thereafter devising all spurious means to recover the same. The vicious cycle of graft has been broken at once. It would be difficult to reformulate the newer mechanisms of graft as the drive for probity & accountability would have penetrated much deeper through a slew of parallel interventions ranging from policy to practices to perceptions.
It was an epochal day for this mega-announcement. The British Premier was present in the country for her first bilateral visit outside Europe after Brexit and the people of the United States of America were in the process of electing their next President. It was the birthday of the longest serving patriarch of the political formulation weaving an alternate nationalist narrative, Sri Lal Krishna Advani who kept the issue of graft burning through his long drawn political articulation and resilience. A man of virtues and values who built the party for 30 odd years before passing on the baton to the next league of a worthy successor. The festival of wealth & prosperity had just passed by with all its splendor & majesty.
Between the eclectic paeans & dastardly attempts to lambast this turning point in India's history lies the destiny of the ordinary Indians who have had harangued themselves in the dictum "koi nripa hoye humein ka haani" (Let whosoever be the king, how does it matter to us). Seems like Narendra Modi has challenged this state of dejection by this well strategized, elaborately planned and meticulously executed move just like a Pokharan operation which couldn't be unraveled or anticipated by the best of spying apparatus. The collective conscience of the nation has responded positvely to demonetization because they believe this is aimed at probity and integrity.
Seldom in the history of nations, moments of such momentous transformations do arise. The demonetization of the currency notes of higher denominations is one such tectonic shift which has the potency to take the destiny of this ancient civilization to its intended glory & grandeur. India's tryst with destiny continues with the relentless striving of the nationalists to make India Great Again, stealing the phrase from the next President of the United States.
When Prime Minister Modi had launched the Swaccha Bharat Campaign on October 2nd, 2014 the larger symbolic and substantial purport of the same was not that visible even to the most pervasive of the thinkers & observers. Mr. Modi is certainly heading India towards a disruptive mode of Governance to bring that much-desired relief on the face of each of the 125 Crore Indians through this much-needed detox.
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