Namrata Sharma
My dear fellow countrymen,
Born and brought up in India, I spent most of my life in this ancient land but have been living in Singapore for the last seven years.
Many people describe Singapore as a ‘near perfect country” and I mostly tend to agree with them. Notwithstanding the high cost of living [Singapore is among the world’s costliest cities], the good lifestyle, the secured environment, the way the country is being governed, the drive for a clean environnment and livable surrounding and a lot more…All this certainly has the power to change one’s perception about life and aim at enjoying it to the fullest.
I am no different. Yet, the comforts and high standards of living that I enjoy in Singapore have not made me immune to what is happening in India. I still follow the events taking place in my motherrland. Whether it is when election results are trickling in or courts are delivering an important judgement, I try to spend most of the day following the developments on internet, television or social media.
The parliamentary elections in May last year were one such event where Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party first emerged as the front-runner and eventually victorious. The moment Modi, who was then Gujarat’s Chief Minister embarked on his campaign, it generated a lot of interest. The high-decibel campaign of the BJP strongman even made many of my local friends in Singapore to sit up and take notice.
Amid all the din and drama that accompany the election caravan, Modi as a Prime Ministerial candidate had given some hope to all my Indian friends, most of whom were living overseas for almost a decade. During our parties and get-togethers, a major point of discussion would always be, ‘Will Modi be able to change India?’ Kya acche din aayenge [Will good days arrive?]
Before the polls, we were really fed up of hearing only negative news about India. In the past few years in particular, the multi-million dollar scams and deteriorating standards of security resulted in a lot of bad press.
After the spine chilling rape of a young girl in New Delhi on the night of December 16, 2012 all the newspapers and television channels in Singapore carried stories about the poor state security for women in India making them highly unsafe. The rampant criticism was also splashed all over the social media and Singapore’s foreign minister, K Shanmugam said the brutal rape-cum-murder was a text book case for capital punishment – a death sentence to the criminals.
The cab drivers in Singapore used to ask – “Is India really that unsafe to live?” I told them that India needs a strong decisive person who can bring about a change democratically to the vast and diverse country. Unlike Singapore, which is a small city-state of 5.3 million people and relatively easier to govern, India is world’s second most populous country with 29 states and is home to more than 1200 million.
When the BJP declared that Modi is their candidate for the post of Prime Minister, it gave young Indians, some hope that things can get better in India too. I am my friends spent a lot of time following him on the social media and listened to his speeches. It gave us a lot of confidence, if not any guarantee that a change for the better is in the offing.
After the polls, things have started to change albeit slightly. A few Indians – particularly those belonging to the young generation, who are employed in transnational companies overseas, have returned to India. However, like me many more people within the country continue to look for opportunities out of India.
I feel very strongly over the issue of security for women. After the change of guard in Lutyens’ Delhi, there are no signs of improvement on this front. Every day incidents of rape and murder are getting reported from across the country resulting in a false stereotype image about India getting formed in the minds of the people. A professor in Germany was recently reported to have refused internship to a male Indian student citing the culture of rapes. Crimes against women is a global menace and Germany is no exception but the female professor’s views in Leipzig did indicate about what a section of the world thinks of India.
A close friend of mine from Gujarat fervently admires the economic progress made by the state but avoided discussions on politics because she firmly believed that the standards of Indian politics will never improve. However, after BJP’s victory she is optimistic that the Prime Minister has the power and more importantly the will to turn India into a safer, cleaner and more developed country. Even though Gujarat still lags behind in social parameters such as female nutrition and farmer suicides are common but Modi as Chief Minister is credited to have taken forward the initiatives taken by one of his predecessors of the 1990s, Chimanbhai Patel and given a major boost to the industrial sector. This helped create the much needed new avenues of employment for the youth.
During a recent visit to India I was somewhat surprised to see that even after close to nine months in power, Modi and his brand of politics was a heated subject of debate that is polarizing the nation. Perhaps it is too short a time span to make a major impact on the ground but I was keen to know about the changes initiated and felt by the common man under the new dispensation. A common but unexpected refrain from my friends was that at least government employees are reaching their offices on time. It seems that installation of the bio-metric or finger-based attendance system at some of the offices is beginning to yield results. However, there are always two sides to a coin and the flip side of this initiative is that employees also tend to leave for their homes at 5 pm sharp unlike the past when they were working late hours well into the night. What ultimately matters is the quality of governance and not the duration of time spent in the offices by babudom.
A positive initiative of the current government is pulling a leaf from the Gujarat book to take forward several initiatives of the previous UPA regime such as the direct cash transfer scheme, expansion of national highways and rail network, space mission to Mars and unique identity card disbursal project called Aadhaar. This policy of the BJP government had also paid rich dividends in Gujarat where medium-term projects implemented by Chimanbhai Patel came to their fruition more than a decade later when Modi was the Chief Minister.
India’s annual Gross Domestic Product, or GDP growth is currently satisfactory and the government is also trying to improve relations with not only the neighboring countries, but also Europe, Americas and the Far East. The fact that a US President has for the first time graced India’s Republic Day celebrations indicates that the global superpower attaches reasonable level of importance to India.
At the same time it is a matter of concern that the much touted India-EU summit that was proposed to be held next month failed to materialize and Modi’s plans of a visit to Brussels had to be called off. Eight years after their launch, the talks over an India-EU trade and investment pact are also stalled. Earlier this year the EU parliament adopted a resolution accusing India of a breach of human rights amid the inordinate judicial delay in settling the case of Italian marines charged of killing Indian fishermen in 2012.
As promised, the new government should now try to bring real changes for the betterment of India. People of India are not asking for the moon or Mars but only the fulfillment of their basic needs – social security, education, employment and corruption free governance. They are waiting for the acche din or good days that Narendrabhai Damodardas Modi promised.
Namrata Sharma
