On 23rd of May 2019, history was once again created in the Indian subcontinent. For the second consecutive time, the Narendra Modi-led BJP government was destined to take charge in the centre. The ‘NaMo NaMo’ chants reverberated in almost every nook and corner of the country, as the BJP government won with a whopping 300+ seats which directly or indirectly hinted the denizens desire to see Narendra Modi as their honourable Prime Minister once again. Hence people were found saying, “If it was a Modi wave in 2014, it was the Modi tsunami in 2019 that simply broke apart each and everything that came across its way”.
Modi’s win was also important in another way; BJP’s win in 2014 was tagged by many critics as the people’s desire to choose an alternative to the Congress party’s diabolic run that supposedly revolved around corruptions and scams. In fact, by winning in 2019, Modi directly proved that the 2014 win was not a fluke, as the people of India wanted a strong and robust nation with no corruption and increased transparency.
However, if we carefully scrutinize the first term of the Modi led government, there are clearly certain issues that were left unsolved in its first tenure. For a common person, it might look like no party can be as good as the BJP led government, but a deeper analysis might reveal some shocking facts.
According to a recent article by The Business Standard, India’s unemployment rate has risen to a 45-year high of 6.1% in 2017-18. And this report has come as a major setback for the government, especially because creating job opportunities was a primary agenda of BJP’s election campaigns. In fact, even the Prime Minister in his election speeches seemed really enthusiastic about making full use of the human resources available in the country, but in reality, things went astray.
I believe this issue seriously needs to be tackled by the government in its upcoming tenure, or else India’s unemployment issue will simply remain an incurable headache. Moreover, another national daily, The Hindu reported that India’s GDP growth slowed to a five-year low at 5.8% in January-March 2018-19, falling behind China, especially due to poor performance in the agricultural and manufacturing sector. The government should soon come up with new innovative policies to once again revamp the degrading GDP for the betterment of the nation.
Amidst all these issues, the newly elected Finance Minister of India might just be a ray of hope, since Nirmala Sitharaman, a highly qualified economist has the skills to improve the situation in India’s favour.
A government can never become successful until the home ministry works in the right way and this is true for India as well. The Home Ministry of India also has some major challenges to tackle. Issues like internal security, scrapping of article 370 and 35A in Jammu and Kashmir, the Ram Mandir issue, the National Register of Citizens, the Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2016 etc. garnered a lot of attention during campaigning. Whether Jammu and Kashmir, Ayodhya or the Northeast, the respective issues in their respective places have created a tremendous amount of tension. Although the honourable Supreme Court on March 6 2019, reserved its order on the invocation of Section 89 of the Code of Civil Procedure to attempt a court-monitored mediation in the decades-old Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi title suit, the Hindu parties had opposed the idea of mediation, while the Muslim parties’ lawyers voted for negotiation.
Thus, the Home Ministry has some grave issues to tackle and I believe that all those issues must be dealt with in a scientific way since even the smallest error might destroy the peace and harmony of the nation.
The case for the Defence Ministry is no different either. The conspicuous fact is that India has been attacked numerous times by terrorists and also by Pakistan in the form of retaliation. Although India has replied to terrorism in a bold way, the Defence Ministry must be more strong and diplomatic. Considering everything, including India and China’s bitter relationship, every possible effort must be made by the Defence Ministry to get the Rafale fighter aircraft as early as possible. Also, border security must be enhanced, armies must be provided with as many facilities as possible and most importantly the security of India from every aspect possible must be the top priority.
Meanwhile, the good news is that the new minister of External Affairs, S. Jaishankar is being viewed as a messiah, and it would be interesting to see the policies that he would undertake in order to maintain India’s foreign relationships, especially with China.
Along with all these major issues, other issues like improving the education sector, enriching the livelihood of the farmers, nourishing the agricultural sector, and removing poverty, all add up as other pivotal challenges in front of the government.
Therefore, the next 5 years will be the real game changer for India. If the government becomes successful in tackling the issues, a new unified India would emerge in no time. These next 5 years might also be consequential for the people of the Northeast and Assam as well, in terms of CAB, 2016 and NRC or insurgency. In my opinion, all that the government needs to do is to come up with policies that don’t hurt people’s sentiments. And if the opposite happens, then the government might also have to come across people’s wrath that was once instrumental in discarding the Congress government.
However, any government in power should always remember these words by former Prime Minister Late Atal Bihari Vajpayee, “Government will come, the government will go, but this nation should not stop. It must go on and climb the ladder of success.”