Lok Sabha 2019 results handing BJP and NDA a resounding victory could be a major Inflection Point in Indian National Politics mainly for two reasons.
1. This time the Indian electorate voted for a party cutting across all castes and religions. This is the first time it has happened where the usual caste arithmetic is trounced and this phenomenon is fantastic for the unity of the nation.
2. The electorate supported the pro incumbency and re-elected the government based on the work it had done in health care and through several other flagship schemes.
Ever since independence, this is the first time a party is voted back to power based on the work it had done and people across all castes and religions endorsed the part and re-elected the government. If we examine all the Indian central governments that were re-elected it would become clear.
Our first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru ruled for 17 years. It is because of the major role played by the Congress in the Independence movement, people kept voting it back to power. People forgave Nehru and kept electing Congress even when he made several major mistakes such as not being able to prevent the vivisection of the country which brought death, destruction, and agony to millions, taking the Kashmir issue to UN instead of solving it locally, not sensing the looming war with China by believing in the slogan "Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai" and ending up losing the war with China. Though personally Nehru's integrity and his love for the nation is beyond any question, his economic policies were communist and ended up creating a License Raj that was evil and did not help in growing the economy faster. By making his daughter Indira Gandhi as President of Congress in 1959, Nehru unwittingly sowed the initial seeds of dynastic politics.
India got a fine Prime Minister in Lal Bahadur Shastri, who was known for his humility and honesty. India was quite unfortunate that his tenure was cut short due to his death.
India was much more unfortunate that Indira Gandhi was chosen by the Congress Syndicate as the next Prime Minister. She later ousted the very Syndicate members from the party. In 1971, she won the elections as the Congress party still enjoyed people's support, she is the daughter of well known Jawaharlal Nehru helped and people bought her "Garibi Hatao" slogan which BJP calls it as a false promise. She is accused of institutionalizing and encouraging corruption. She strengthened the dynastic politics by first trying to nurture Sanjay Gandhi and later Rajiv Gandhi. Thanks to her, now dynastic politics is practiced in every state throughout the nation.
In 1975, when Allahabad High Court upheld the charges of electoral malpractices against Indira Gandhi, she turned her personal crisis into a national crisis by imposing emergency on the entire nation. B.N.Tandon, an Additional Secretary in the Prime Minister's office (PMO) shares his experience of working closely with Indira Gandhi in his book, "PMO Diary: Prelude to Emergency". When you read that book you get an idea about Indira Gandhi's character, how selfish she was, how much lust she had towards power, how casual was her approach towards corruption and finally how little she cared about people and their sufferings. Her constituency Raebareli bears testimony to this fact.
Though people rejected Indira Gandhi during the 1977 elections, the Janata Party which came to power could not last long due to infighting among its members. Indira Gandhi swept back to power by winning the 1979 elections as the people did not have any alternative. During her reign, Sant Bhindranwale, a Sikh religious leader disinterested in politics grew politically due to the support of Congress, Sanjay Gandhi and Zail Singh as alleged by the cited Wikipedia article. Just to counter Akali Dal, Congress supported Bhindranwale who grew into a monster perpetrating violence. Finally, Indira Gandhi ordered the army to launch Operation Blue Star massacring the Sikhs, compromising the sanctity of the Golden Temple and heavily damaging the temple complex. Within two months after this incident, she topples the democratically elected government in Jammu & Kashmir. Since then J&K people have lost faith in India's democracy, gradually unrest increased and the state is on the boil even today.
After Indira Gandhi's assassination, Rajiv Gandhi was installed as the Prime Minister. When the 1984 Sikh riots broke out he did not try to stop them which easily he could have but allowed the violence to continue unabated for three days resulting in the massacre of Sikhs, large scale violence and displacement of large number Sikhs and their families. Later in the same year, Rajiv Gandhi had a resounding victory in the 1984 elections riding on the sympathy wave due to his mother's death. He got a massive mandate of 404 seats out of 514. He could have used such a mandate for the betterment of the nation. Instead, he used his majority in the house to overturn the decision of the honorable Supreme court in the Shah Bano case thereby failing to come to the rescue of Muslim women. Then he got buried in the outbreak of the Bofors Scandal. The book "Durbar" written by Tavleen Singh discusses the regime of Rajiv Gandhi in detail, the mistakes he made and the improvements he could have done.
Until UPA governments in 2004 and 2009 no other government was given the second term. While UPA-1 was marred with Coal Allocation Scam and 2G Spectrum Scam, UPA-2 had Common Wealth Games (CWG) Scam, Adarsh Housing Society Scam and Helicopter Bribery Scandal. UPA-2 was voted back to power with a lot of hope on the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as a person. By allowing so many scams to take place he let down the aspirations of the nation. It was quite shameful and damaging to the dignity of the Prime Minister's chair when Rahul Gandhi embarrassed Mr.Singh by tearing the draft of an ordinance bill publicly in a press meet.
Thus in the entire history of independent India, people did not have a chance to re-elect a government sheerly based on its performance and providing the support cutting across the caste or religious lines. Hope the new Narendra Modi government utilizes the mandate wisely, addresses the pressing problems and guides the nation towards progress and prosperity.
1. This time the Indian electorate voted for a party cutting across all castes and religions. This is the first time it has happened where the usual caste arithmetic is trounced and this phenomenon is fantastic for the unity of the nation.
2. The electorate supported the pro incumbency and re-elected the government based on the work it had done in health care and through several other flagship schemes.
Ever since independence, this is the first time a party is voted back to power based on the work it had done and people across all castes and religions endorsed the part and re-elected the government. If we examine all the Indian central governments that were re-elected it would become clear.
Our first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru ruled for 17 years. It is because of the major role played by the Congress in the Independence movement, people kept voting it back to power. People forgave Nehru and kept electing Congress even when he made several major mistakes such as not being able to prevent the vivisection of the country which brought death, destruction, and agony to millions, taking the Kashmir issue to UN instead of solving it locally, not sensing the looming war with China by believing in the slogan "Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai" and ending up losing the war with China. Though personally Nehru's integrity and his love for the nation is beyond any question, his economic policies were communist and ended up creating a License Raj that was evil and did not help in growing the economy faster. By making his daughter Indira Gandhi as President of Congress in 1959, Nehru unwittingly sowed the initial seeds of dynastic politics.
India got a fine Prime Minister in Lal Bahadur Shastri, who was known for his humility and honesty. India was quite unfortunate that his tenure was cut short due to his death.
India was much more unfortunate that Indira Gandhi was chosen by the Congress Syndicate as the next Prime Minister. She later ousted the very Syndicate members from the party. In 1971, she won the elections as the Congress party still enjoyed people's support, she is the daughter of well known Jawaharlal Nehru helped and people bought her "Garibi Hatao" slogan which BJP calls it as a false promise. She is accused of institutionalizing and encouraging corruption. She strengthened the dynastic politics by first trying to nurture Sanjay Gandhi and later Rajiv Gandhi. Thanks to her, now dynastic politics is practiced in every state throughout the nation.
In 1975, when Allahabad High Court upheld the charges of electoral malpractices against Indira Gandhi, she turned her personal crisis into a national crisis by imposing emergency on the entire nation. B.N.Tandon, an Additional Secretary in the Prime Minister's office (PMO) shares his experience of working closely with Indira Gandhi in his book, "PMO Diary: Prelude to Emergency". When you read that book you get an idea about Indira Gandhi's character, how selfish she was, how much lust she had towards power, how casual was her approach towards corruption and finally how little she cared about people and their sufferings. Her constituency Raebareli bears testimony to this fact.
Though people rejected Indira Gandhi during the 1977 elections, the Janata Party which came to power could not last long due to infighting among its members. Indira Gandhi swept back to power by winning the 1979 elections as the people did not have any alternative. During her reign, Sant Bhindranwale, a Sikh religious leader disinterested in politics grew politically due to the support of Congress, Sanjay Gandhi and Zail Singh as alleged by the cited Wikipedia article. Just to counter Akali Dal, Congress supported Bhindranwale who grew into a monster perpetrating violence. Finally, Indira Gandhi ordered the army to launch Operation Blue Star massacring the Sikhs, compromising the sanctity of the Golden Temple and heavily damaging the temple complex. Within two months after this incident, she topples the democratically elected government in Jammu & Kashmir. Since then J&K people have lost faith in India's democracy, gradually unrest increased and the state is on the boil even today.
After Indira Gandhi's assassination, Rajiv Gandhi was installed as the Prime Minister. When the 1984 Sikh riots broke out he did not try to stop them which easily he could have but allowed the violence to continue unabated for three days resulting in the massacre of Sikhs, large scale violence and displacement of large number Sikhs and their families. Later in the same year, Rajiv Gandhi had a resounding victory in the 1984 elections riding on the sympathy wave due to his mother's death. He got a massive mandate of 404 seats out of 514. He could have used such a mandate for the betterment of the nation. Instead, he used his majority in the house to overturn the decision of the honorable Supreme court in the Shah Bano case thereby failing to come to the rescue of Muslim women. Then he got buried in the outbreak of the Bofors Scandal. The book "Durbar" written by Tavleen Singh discusses the regime of Rajiv Gandhi in detail, the mistakes he made and the improvements he could have done.
Until UPA governments in 2004 and 2009 no other government was given the second term. While UPA-1 was marred with Coal Allocation Scam and 2G Spectrum Scam, UPA-2 had Common Wealth Games (CWG) Scam, Adarsh Housing Society Scam and Helicopter Bribery Scandal. UPA-2 was voted back to power with a lot of hope on the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as a person. By allowing so many scams to take place he let down the aspirations of the nation. It was quite shameful and damaging to the dignity of the Prime Minister's chair when Rahul Gandhi embarrassed Mr.Singh by tearing the draft of an ordinance bill publicly in a press meet.
Thus in the entire history of independent India, people did not have a chance to re-elect a government sheerly based on its performance and providing the support cutting across the caste or religious lines. Hope the new Narendra Modi government utilizes the mandate wisely, addresses the pressing problems and guides the nation towards progress and prosperity.
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