Since 2014, Narendra Modi has established his credentials as a reformer and has stood as a Prime Minister par excellence. With him coming to power, India is gradually breaking the shackles of Colonial hangover steeped into the Socialist era of Nehruvianism that rocked India for six decades. His promise of ‘Acche Din’ and the vision for a New India owe much to his idea of India as a young nation that continues to evolve as a millennia-old civilization.
In 8 years, PM Modi became a world leader with highest approval rating. One of the striking features of the Modi regime has been the successful implementation of welfare schemes ensuring basic facilities like water, sanitation, gas, electricity, housing and connectivity across the length and breadth of India. Modi has a barrage of hits in his arsenal including unprecedented Infrastructure development, abrogation of Article 370 and 35 (A), curtailing terrorism, increased participation of women in the democracy, and carving out an independent foreign policy among many others.
In the past 8 years, the Modi government has done a substantial lot to usher in ‘Acche Din’. The rot of over 70 years certainly takes more than 8 years to clean up. While Narendra Modi completes eight years in office as a Prime Minister today, here is a wishlist of eight things that the government should do as we gear up for a probable (inevitable, it seems like) Modi 3.0.
1. Repeal Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act
The Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act was passed by the Parliament with the motive to prohibit conversion of any place of worship and to maintain the religious character of any place of worship as it existed on August 15, 1947. The Places of Worship Act excluded the Ram Janmabhoomi case and applied to all other religious places. There were certain other exceptions also mentioned in the act, like the place of worship being over 100 years old.
Today, The Places of Worship Act infringes on the rights of Hindus, who are demanding the rightful ownership of their sacred shrines including Kashi and Mathura after Ayodhya. While after the survey of the disputed Gyanwapi structure, with the emerging signs of traces of a Hindu temple and the presence of Shivling inside the premises it is amply clear that the present-day mosque rests on the erstwhile temple of Vishveshwar, even if the glaring Hindu temple remains was proof that was not sufficient for naysayers.
However, with the Places of Worship Act that was brought into force in 1991, the upright restoration of Kashi into a temple for Vishveshwar is impossible. Beyond the considered case, it remains utterly discriminatory upon Hindus to claim the rightful ownership of their civilizational heritage after a millennium of barbaric invasions with the act in place. Many have argued that the law deprives Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, and Sikhs to take back their places of worship and pilgrimage connected with cultural heritage (Article 29) and restricts them to restore the possession of places of worship and pilgrimage but allows Muslims to claim under S.107, Waqf Act.
Thus, given that this government has been attentive and aware of the rights of Hindus, ignored by previous governments who even wanted to introduce bills like the Communal Violence Bill, this government appears to be the only hope for Hindus to get rid of legislation that infringes upon their rights. Elected representatives of the State cannot come in the way of the reconciliatory process between two communities which starts with acknowledging the truth and restoring the rights of the persecuted majority.
2. Implementing the New Education Policy, re-narrating the history books
The Educational system in India draws heavily from the colonial biases of those who documented India’s journey as a nation-state, obscure ways of examinations, and conceptualization of courses completely independent of the market demand and needs of the present. The Indian pedagogy must evolve to make education more experiential, holistic, integrated with core values of the land, inquiry-driven, learner-centred, communicative, flexible, and enjoyable.
In consonance with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by India in 2015 to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all,” The Government of India brought in the much-awaited New Education Policy in 2020. The draft for NEP invited comments and objections alike. While the draft has made some breakthrough recommendations to rekindle Educational prowess in India, the implementation has been pending for various reasons.
The Covid-19 pandemic was one of the main reasons why the upgradation and implementation of NEP remained undone. One of the major policy demands before The Narendra Modi government was the demand to overhaul the Indian textbooks and make them in tune with the culture and context of India as a continuing civilization along with the accurate representation of our history, including what the Islamic barbarians did to the Hindu civilisation and the true representations of Kings and leaders who spearheaded the civilisation of Bharata.
The History curriculum in India often glorifies the invaders and downplays the role of Indian dynasties in the curriculum. A case for the same has already been laid in the intellectual space, and historians and thinkers have repeatedly won over the imagination of the New India which demands to overthrow the hegemony of the Left on this issue. While the Modi government has already been accused of “saffronisation” of the curriculum, it is a pill that they would have to swallow, sooner or later, for the sake of our children.
3. Cleaning up the Bureaucracy, owning up the ‘System’
Much beyond the maligned ideological ecosystems that keep churning most of the news cycle today, it is the bureaucracy that forms the real ‘system’ of the country. The administrative officers or Babus are the building blocks of any government’s goals for delivering efficient and transparent governance. The Civil services – a brainchild of British India, and the post-Independence conversion of it into IAS have largely failed in bringing an indigenous element into the administrative character. The system today denies reforming itself to be more people-centric, is introverted in terms of functioning and shies away to prove its timely competence.
Moreover, The Indian Administrative Service and its allied branches of IFS, IRS and IPS are a model superimposed on the contrasting ways of deep-rooted Indian practices in governance, statecraft and policy implementation. The rigid framework under which our babus work continues to discount the understanding of Indian society and has acquired a superiority complex of its own; while it is supposed to serve the interests of the people. While there is a watertight argument for cleaning up the bureaucracy, the first step that needs to be taken is newly conceptualizing the IAS afresh.
Since its inception, the Modi government has exercised a top-down approach in bringing discipline, cleanliness and accountability to the ways of administration. It is perhaps in the larger interest of the nation to work with an iron fist upon its Mission Karmayogi – The National Programme for Civil Services Capacity Building (NPCSCB) launched in September 2020.
4. Implement CAA and nationwide NRC
Passed in the Parliament in December 2019, the Citizenship Amendment Act allows persecuted religious minorities residing in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan to acquire Indian citizenship on a fast track basis. Under the Act, people from the Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Jain, Parsi and the Christian communities who fled to India before December 31, 2014, will be given Indian citizenship.
According to the Manual on Parliamentary Work, the rules for any legislation brought in the parliament should be framed within six months of the presidential nod. During the pandemic, the Central Ministry of Home Affairs was not in the position to frame rules within six months of the enactment of the CAA, it continued to seek time from parliamentary committees for the same since June 2020 for four times.
With the bold and much-needed ideation of CAA by the Modi government, the nation saw nationwide protests that were designed to evolve into riots across the country by Islamists and Leftists. Bearing the brunt of International pressure, the government refused to buckle down and stood in solidarity with persecuted Indic minorities in neighbouring Islamic nations. Only recently, Amit Shah made a statement saying that CAA would be implemented once the pandemic is over.
Along with CAA, it is also necessary to take steps to oust illegal immigrants from the country, especially Bangladeshis and Rohingya Muslims. Both sections pose a significant threat to the nation as detailed several times before. We have seen several crimes in which these illegal immigrants were used as weapons. In fact, during the anti-Hindu Delhi Riots, Umar Khalid had specifically called for the mobilisation of Bangladeshi Muslims against the act, leading to rampant violence in Northeast Delhi against Hindus.
While opposition parties and Muslim leaders seek the rehabilitation of illegal Muslims, the Modi government has stood firm on their idea of ousting them from the nation. While in Assam, the Supreme Court mandated NRC, it is now becoming increasingly necessary for a national version of the NRC to ensure that the sovereignty of the nation is not threatened by illegals.
5. Free Temples from Government Control
The Indian Nation-State since its formation after the country attained Independence has taken upon itself to govern and administer Hindu Places of Worship through a network of laws. The state of Karnataka alone has five different laws that institutionalise government control of Hindu temples, while the case is not so when it comes to places of worship of other religions. In Tamil Nadu, The Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department controls more than thirty-six thousand temples, 56 mutts, 1,721 specific endowments and over 189 religious trusts.
When the state governments enshrine themselves to control Hindu temples, the much-underlined promise of a secular state goes in vain. The Indian-style secularism reduces itself to a one-way street, with the state interfering in personal matters of the majority religion. Moreover, it reflects a patronising mindset with an assumption that the Hindus are unfit to run their own religious institutions.
Giving freedom to temples will also enable them to build institutions like hospitals, schools, orphanages and old-age homes under their fold. The dynamics of what once counted as a Hindu temple could be revised to its fullest potential if the religious institutions of Hindus are liberated from state control. While the BJP-ruled states of Uttarakhand and Karnataka have taken the preliminary steps forward in this direction, there needs to be a nationwide narrative change on this issue.
What needs to be brought in is a contextual, ritual-specific, state-approved legislation for delimiting the government control of temples with an understanding and allegiance to the tradition of the temples.
6. Challenges in internal security and curbing anti-national forces
One of the greater challenges that have escalated before the Indian state is the balance in upholding civil liberties and the right to dissent on one side and purging it from becoming a force of anarchy on the other. The recent years have seen protests fanning quickly into rioting situations – be it the anti-Hindu Delhi Riots that fumigated from the manufactured discontent over the CAA/NRC in 2020 (and the extensive conspiracy by the Islamists and Leftists to create violence against Hindus) or the Republic day riots that fanned over Farm Law agitations in 2021.
The hostage of public properties and rights of passage when in the name of protests, activists block highways and streets have not only cost us a price in the derailment of the micro-economic growth of the region but these sites also have the potential of turning into hotbeds of anarchy. The glaring attribute of these contested agitations is their ability to quickly transform into provocation before some anti-social elements disturb the law and order.
In this regard, organisations and NGOs, indulging in anarchic activities in India in the name of protests, have to be identified by the government on a regular basis. The government must ensure that mischievous entities do not get an FCRA license or a visa to work in India.
7. Pushing for Judicial reforms
Over the years, the need for Judicial reforms in India has been growing. Pending cases before the courts, lack of interaction between the layers of courtrooms, Judicial overreach and consultative selection of successive Chief Justices have been hard-pressed issues before the Indian Judiciary which continues to work under a restrictive framework. The Justice system in India has to evolve as a modern-day institution delivering timely justice to the matters put before it. At the same time, the democratisation of judicial processes in terms of appointments, rights granted to Justices and timely delivery of judgements remains an issue.
The Indian State needs to pave the way for the modernization of the Judiciary by allocating dedicated funds in the process. The infrastructure gap needs to be levelled with the Centrally Sponsored Scheme for Judicial Infrastructure under which the Government has released Rs 5,266 crores in the last eight years. The issue of underutilization of funds and poor planning of Judicial Infrastructure also needs to be addressed.
At present, the Indian high courts list 5.8 million pending cases and the daunting case backlog is one of the biggest challenges for any public institution in India. The reason for this is an excessive rise in the fresh cases, which is a result of extensive jurisdiction granted to the judiciary in the Indian Constitution. The Central law ministry should work with the courts to rework the civil and criminal procedure codes that stifle quick case disposals. Plus, a case has to be built to restrict excessive jurisdiction granted to the court to take suo moto cognizance of daily-life happenings in the country.
8. Ramping up Sustainable Urban Development goals
One of the key features of the Narendra Modi Government has been its impetus on Urban development and ramping up infrastructure, with a high striking rate of rapid urbanisation, it is important that we address the evolution and expansion of our new urban areas with respect to the geographical, socio-cultural, economic and ecological context. With over 60% of the people set to live in cities by 2040, the need to accommodate a large influx of migrants into the urban fold thus needs to be considered.
Sustainable urban development in India’s context would mean primarily catering to this host of new migrants set to live in the Indian cities. With schemes like HRIDAY, AMRUT and PMAY in consonance with the Smart Cities Mission, the Government of India has before it as a challenge to decentralise the planning processes and hand more liberty to the city-level institutions. Maintainance of new infrastructure and amenities within the city would mean additional responsibilities on the Urban local bodies.
The Narendra Modi Government can lead with an example by rethinking urban governance by handing over more political imperative and powers to the local bodies by exploring newer models of administration, which it is doing to a large extent. For ideal maintenance of newly built urban infrastructure like highways, roadways, riverfront, parks, footpaths, etc. laws for making people accountable for the maintenance of shared urban properties should be amended.
The Urban development goals of the Central Government would also include improving the air quality index in Indian cities, working on contemporary methods for waste collection and sewage disposal and putting an impetus on the promotion of public means of transportation like buses, metro trains, trams, etc.
