Samikhsya Bureau
Looking back at the chronology of events those played out during last six years of the NDA regime present an amusing pack of political brinkmanship to remain afloat with more of propaganda but little governance.
The sequence of events appear to have been well thought of to address the agendas more than offering solutions to larger issues related to the people through governance.
The major cause of concern is the abruptness with which certain decisions were taken or, were imposed, the NDA had hardly foreseen the stormy weathers those had followed.
The step at demonetization was more than a surprise for the majority not because it was ‘allegedly taken without even a modicum of consensus whatsoever’ , that took the entire nation by a shock.
What was the aftermath is already history and what were the gains and losses the government has not been able to come out with so far.
That was a part of events which kept the people of India well distracted from the governance part. Neither black money could be recovered nor terrorism was curbed. But tension prevailed for months as the government worked hard to defend the indefensible demonetization.
Then it went on, like a war, between rhetoric and hard issues affecting people. But, presumably, the NDA think tanks were never exhausted of energy and their blue prints were ready so back to back that, people could have hardly any time for breather to know where is governance.
What followed was a slew of problems related to communal divides over ‘beaf’ or Akhlak or cow vigilantism and so on, Which gave way to incidents of mobocracy from many parts of the country. So, politics had hardly any time for governance as the vast multitude was left in askance when peoples’ problems meanwhile kept shoring up.
Then the elections loomed when the NDA, post its debacle in three Hindi heartland states, remained a cause of fear for the BJP-led government.
That fear had forced the NDA to look for recourses other than developments. Which so happened that, the card of nationalism was allowed to creep in to mainstream politics and dramatics and theatrics started ranting all over the country after Pulwama and then Balakot.
The new momentum clicked well and for the NDA it really came in handy to re-enhance its political acceptability and which created an atmosphere where nationalism intensified to an extent when people forgot the real growth.
So, NDA, in 2019, could manage with the roller-coaster ride without even a cogent reason to justify nationalism. NDA entered its second phase with a brute majority in Lok sabha.
After that a few steps like lowering the tax of corporate were experimented to showcase inward investment from abroad but that, in essence, ran counter to the trade as expected.
The success in 2019 polls has led to a litany of events which started unfolding fast. The most challenging was abrogation of the Article 370 in Kashmir and what happened is different but, the issue spun off narratives that consumed a lot of time before the NDA undertook the next mission.
The turmoil in Maharashtra in the Assembly polls exposed the divide in the ranks and files in the Hindutva agenda when it failed to wean away Shiv Sena which ultimately resulted in an unprecedented dilution of political ideologies as never before and Amit Shah’s all efforts ended in a drama improbable.
Now in the line up are the issues and those are hot enough to cool down for at least six months or more but the immediate exigency trains on the West Bengal polls.
Regardless of what comes out, the NDA’s armory hardly requires any replenishment as CAB and NRC are bound to transpire a situation that would stretch longer than expected.
It is so engaging politically that, slogans like ‘beti padhao, beti bachao’ have suffered a significant diminish after Hyderabad and Unnao incidents , which shows that politics in India is never static but sometimes wayward.
