Achche din in 2016

It is not the stuff of big front-page headlines or raucous debates on national television, but the year ended with heavy losses for the Bharatiya Janata Party and major gains for the Congress in local bodies in Chhattisgarh. The latter won seven out of 11 civic bodies and the contest for the prestigious post of the mayor of Bhilai.

These results come a few days after the Congress’ victories in five out of eight urban bodies in Madhya Pradesh, a state where the party has been out of power since 2003. And earlier in December, the Congress shocked the BJP with a stunning performance in the rural panchayats, though the BJP retained all six urban bodies. In all three states, the fight was between the two national parties, with no regional outfits in the fray; this was not a first past the post victory because of divided votes. The voter was sending a message.

Add to these the two devastating losses in Delhi and Bihar — where the BJP had done well in the general elections — and it becomes clear that the Modi wave of 2014, when it swept everything before it, has long dissipated. One can look for all kinds of reasons and micro-analyse each loss and victory, but the big picture is clear — there is disenchantment with the ruling party at the Centre (and, in the case of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, also in the state).

For most of 2014 after May, supporters of the ruling dispensation had only one thing to say to their critics who were pointing to the lack of any notable policy movement and results on the ground — give the government some time. This was strange, considering that Mr Modi had come to power promising not just to wipe away the mess created by the Manmohan Singh government, but also to do it quickly. There was just no evidence of the swift decision-making that Mr Modi was supposed to be famous for.

All of 2015 is gone, but things have not gone better. Commentators may look past the U-turns to hail the “impromptu” decision by the Prime Minister to drop into Lahore, but all the trips and visits abroad of the last year cannot compensate for what is worrying the country the most — the lack of any real results on the economic front.

The government may insist the economy is improving and will soon get into a growth spurt, but the experience of the small businessman — and the big — is vastly different.

The Inspector Raj is very much entrenched and for the businessman, as much for the ordinary citizen, the bureaucracy continues with its obdurate and cussed ways. No one in his/her wildest dreams will say that achche din are here or anywhere in sight.

All this is fairly well known but the big question is: Can all this change and will 2016 be the year that the country finally see results A New Year is a time for new beginnings, so should we not look forward with hope Does the Modi government have plans to make radical changes that will change the country for the better It would be wonderful to say that the answer to these questions is a qualified yes, but a more realistic assessment would be that of cautious pessimism. The last year and a half has been a saga of lost opportunities and the caveat of caution is the possibility that this government could break out of that mould. It is likely however that this will not happen and the reason for that is politics, or rather, electoral politics.

Elections to three states are due in 2016 to be followed by elections in Punjab in January 2017. Assam, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu are all crucial states and despite the fact that the BJP is not really a major player in the latter two, it will fight them with vigour. The BJP wants to not just make its presence felt in West Bengal it also wants to shake up Mamata Banerjee who, it feels, is vulnerable in the long run.

In Tamil Nadu, though no one can really challenge the two Dravida parties in any serious way, the BJP will want Jayalalithaa to win because she is more likely to be an ally than the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam. In Assam, the BJP sees a real opportunity to knock off the Congress and plant its flag in a crucial border state.

All this will prove distracting for the party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Mr Modi takes personal interest — some would say an inordinately high interest — in state elections. Given that he is the party’s mascot and vote winner that is understandable, but an election seems to bring out the roaring campaigner in him. He was out there in Delhi and in Bihar, working the crowds, mocking the Opposition and making promises of big economic packages. As has been seen, the Modi impact has been steadily decreasing, but that is not likely to stop him, since each election is seen as a battle that must be won at whatever cost. Prime Ministers should not be expending so much political capital on state elections but the BJP is in a bind since it does not have any other leader with so much heft. The distraction with elections also has another fall out — an unwillingness to take bold but unpopular decisions. Within a year of taking over, the government had tried to push through changes in the Land Acquisition Act and, after facing resistance from the Opposition, dropped them. This was to be a showpiece legislation, since it was the BJP’s contention that the UPA’s Land Acqusition Act — which it had signed off on — was proving to be a handicap for those who wanted to set up factories. What are the chances that Mr Modi will proceed with reforms when three crucial elections are due this year and two more — Punjab and the ultimate prize, Uttar Pradesh — are due the year after And by the end of 2017, it would be barely a year and a half till the next general elections. This prognosis can still prove wrong. The government may decide that elections cannot stall its economic agenda and Mr Modi could focus mainly, if not solely, on the task of domestic governance. The economy, poised for growth, will take off. The common citizen, as much as the tycoon, will start seeing the glimmer of achche din. If that happens, and the country gets on the right track, the BJP can win back its dissipating goodwill. Clearly, 2016 will be a crucial year for the BJP.