Delhi, Feb 18: The announcement of the general elections to the 14th Lok Sabha has triggered a flurry of activities in political circles. The Congress — which is now merely an euphemism for Sonia Gandhi — and the Communists have unleashed a smear campaign to belittle India’s achievements under NDA rule. Some “intellectuals” have even alleged that the NDA’s feel-good factor is limited to a small section of Indians, and that it has an adverse effect on the majority of Indians, especially in rural areas. In democracies, governments come and governments go, but the obligation to add to the nation’s progress is permanent. Every government must contribute something positive — rewrite the achievements. Only some add more and some add less. Of course, like the Marxists in West Bengal, the RJD-walas in Bihar believe in scraping away, rather than adding to the pool.
Despite a billion-strong population, we have attained a food surplus status today as never before. India produced 220 million tonne of food grain this year, more than what is needed to outlast two seasons of drought.
Courtesy Atal Behari Vajpayee’s vision, food is just one of the many areas where we are transiting from a scarcity model to a surplus model. However, it will be uncharitable to deny the precursory role of the Green Revolution (1967-1978), the hallmark of the Indira Gandhi era, in this area.
With such apathy and inertia, the exchequer of a country like India would naturally go bust at some point of time. The day coincidentally arrived shortly before the end of the Cold War. In end-June 1991, our forex reserves had plummeted to $975 million, insufficient to cover two weeks of import, and we had to ship a part of our gold reserves as collateral to avoid a debt default.
The P V Narasimha Rao government had overnight liberalised, privatised and globalised the economy to prevent a total collapse. It was a new model and fell quite short of imagined goals, but there was no question of abandoning it. Now the forex reserves have zoomed to the $105 billion mark (doubling in the last two years). Is this a good sign or not? But when we say “India Shining” or “feel-good factor,” we don’t mean that the economic problems of one billion Indians have been solved. It is not to say that corruption has vanished from the bureaucracy, judiciary or politics; or that everybody has access to potable drinking water; or that everybody has access to electricity.

Garibi Hatao (eradicate poverty) did not occur when India was Indira. When the British left India, our share in global commerce was 2 per cent, and after four decades of “socialism” it plummeted to 0.4 per cent, and now again up to 0.8 per cent. The goal of Congress’ “socialism” was to ensure equal poverty for all.Is India Shining near-exclusively an urban phenomenon? What can better answer this question than the annual report from a premier research institute like the National Council of Applied Economic Research.
According to the NCAER report of 2003, in 1995-96, there were 193 million in the “consuming class” and 312 million “climbers.” In 2001-02, after four years of NDA rule (March ’98 to March ’02), there were 280 million in the consuming class and 429 million climbers. And what about the poorer class? It’s down from 190 million to 140 million. This clearly charts out a trend of upward mobility. This means, almost 100 million added to the consuming class and another 100 million to the “movers".


But the Congress and the Marxists can be more virulent in their criticism of the NDA than any alien. Sonia Gandhi can run down the government in places as the Bin Laden Foundation in London (what a platform to criticise communalism!), while the Marxists can launch an international tirade against the BJP for Pokhran II.
At a time when the CTBT clampdown was near, Vajpayee took the world by surprise with Pokhran II. Could one be so naive to believe that India had developed this thermonuclear capability within 52 days of Vajpayee’s assuming the prime ministerial office in 1998?
Now about the “India Shining” advertisement campaign: In the Congress’ time as well there were sustained pre-poll ad campaigns (remember Rajiv Gandhi’s Mera Bharat Mahan and Narasimha Rao’s Dil Hai Chota Sa, Choti Si Asha which showed that even tea-vendors in remote parts of India adorn their shops with smiling photographs of Rao).
But “India Shining” doesn’t mention the BJP or shows its election symbol anywhere. It’s a government’s obligation to disseminate information about the development activities it has undertaken.