Nine Ways in Which the BJP-led Government Can Govern India with Credibility

Over the last 2-3 months, events, debate and discourse in India have taken a deep plunge for the worse. The Opposition Congress is attacking the BJP-led government thick and fast and the BJP leadership has done little to ward off these consistent attacks. Some events are unfortunate, should have been prevented and should not have occurred in the first place: these are the Dadri lynching in Samajwadi Party-ruled Uttar Pradesh, and fatal assault on writer Kalburgi in Congress-ruled Karnataka. There are a 100 different ways to demonstrate your protest in a non-violent way and physically launching fatal attacks on helpless, hapless citizens doesn’t show bravado but is an uncompromising act of cowardice. As a first step the state governments and the Centre must come forward and generously compensate the affected families financially and should openly express their regret at such incidents with an assurance that such events will not occur again.

The other two issues relating to beef ban and return of state awards by writers, filmmakers, etc needs to be looked in the right perspective and in context. The cow is considered a very holy animal amongst India’s Hindu population mainly due to its many remarkable attributes. This deification and reverence of the cow amongst the Hindu population should be respected by India’s minorities chiefly the Muslims and Christians and sensing the sensitivity of this issue the Muslims and Christians should voluntarily give up consuming beef in public or in presence of Hindu counterparts to show solidarity and sensitivity to the religious feelings of the Hindus. Even in private functions, the Muslims and Christians should refrain from consuming beef in keeping with the sentiments of the Hindu population. This will go a long way in creating feelings of brotherhood amongst the Hindus on the one hand and Muslims and Christians on the other hand.

The return of state awards by a large section of intelligentia is clearly politically motivated and instigated primarily by the Congress. The organised and coordinated way in which these awards have been returned by a large section of writers, filmmakers, scientists, academicians numbering in a couple of hundred smacks of a Congress hand, which only the Congress is capable of doing. The Congress has belatedly learnt that the voice of the intellectuals is instrumental in swaying public opinion to one’s side and they have now started to reluctantly acknowledge the superlative power of man’s intellect in modern day governance. The Congress, which assiduously cultivated these intellectuals rewarded them with state medals and these intellectuals now bereft of state patronage are now toeing the line of their political masters in the Congress by returning these awards. Returning state awards should be considered as an act of revolt against the ruling dispensation and should be dealt with sternly in a suitable legal way.

All these unnecessary controversies have dented and tarnished India’s image and reputation in the national/international media beyond repair and have raised strong questions on India’s credibility as a democratic state. Further, the futile debate on tolerance has been blown out of proportion by making mountains out of molehills of a couple of stray incidents in which the Central government has no hand. It is true that BJP’s MPs have a right to defend and guard moderate Hindutva but they are not speaking in a caliberated, responsible and restrained manner. It will now take many months to restore India’s credibility and image in the eyes of the international media given that the ruling BJP government has not launched a counter offensive in a coordinated, caliberated way to counter these negative jibes. We will now look at nine ways in which the ruling BJP-led government can restore India’s credibility, image and reputation in the shortest possible time.

MODI NEEDS TO CHANGE MORE: It is time Modiji realised that the country is run by a leader supported and backed by a solid team. This rationale is not only foolproof but is also tenable. Modiji famously said that Team India is the Central government, the state governments and the people of India. So why does Modiji forget what he so famously said. The Prime Minister shows the moral vision and the fortitude but the country is run by both the ruling dispensation and the opposition-ruled states. To take the Opposition along in the path of progress is the test of one’s leadership abilities without in any way showing a confrontational attitude but an attitude marked by accomodativeness. Peter Drucker, 21^st century’s most famous management expert said the leader of today must have one chief ability: the ability to ask. This means the ability to ask for the advice, help and guidance from experts, the ability to ask what one doesn’t know, the ability to ask for building capabilities in team building and team functioning, the ability to show gratitude and most importantly the ability to forgive if someone has faulted him. Modiji must address these pain points if he has to effectively lead this country for the next three and a half years and to make sure the BJP comes to power again in 2019 under a new leadership.

ACTIVATING VIGOROUSLY GOVT’S/BJP MINORITY CELL: In the light of recent development in India, the government and the BJP must respectively activate on a war footing the minority cell. The minority cell should have representatives from minority communities like the Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis, etc. Representatives must be influential in their fields, must be well read and well informed and must be in alignment with the Government’s and BJP’s core ideology of moderate Hindutva yet giving fair and equal treatment to all religions, sects, regions, etc. These representatives must reach out to members of their communities, spread the governments message, firefight when tenacious issues are built up in the media, counter negative propaganda about the government and the party and build bridges with the minority communities.  The government/BJP must have a active minority affairs wing in every state.

APPOINTMENTS OF HEADS TO INSTITUTIONS: Let it be clear that it is the Central government’s prerogative to appoint those individual’s which it deems fit as heads of institutions due to alignment of their political philosophy with the ruling dispensation. The opposition cannot meddle in this nor raise a hue and cry over this act. Change in guard is often followed by change in institutional leadership which is aligned philosophically with that of the ruling dispensation. The government is not elected to please the opposition or to do their bidding. The BJP and the ruling Central dispensation must painstakingly cultivate constituencies in every walk of Indian life be it business, traders, industrialists, artists, writers, scientists, academicians, journalists, NGOs, trade unions, farmers, etc and must seize every legitimate opportunity to project and promote moderate Hindutva. This alone will make sure the BJP has friends in all spheres of life.

MONITORING MEDIA 24X7: If the Delhi government can discipline media by issuing a decree that if any media house does negative reporting on the ruling Delhi government it will be taken to task then the Central government should take a cue from this. The top 500 newspapers, newsmagazines, newsportals and social media and international news agencies and publications operating from India must be monitored 24X7 by the government. For this, a special dedicated cell should be set up by the Govt/BJP under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and manned by officers of the Indian Information Service and experienced professionals from the private sector. The task of this media cell so constituted should be to give hourly/ 3 hourly updates on important regional, national international developments, analysis of the reporting trends whether pro government or anti government, and daily departmental summaries to the state and cabinet ministers.

QUICK REACTION TEAMS (QRTs): The governments, both previous and current have shown repeatedly that they are woefully ill-equipped to react on changing dynamic situation in country and internationally swiftly, firmly and in time. For this the ruling BJP government should constitute a Quick Reaction Team comprising 20-25 experts from different fields, who analyse a developing story, formulate the governments stand and convey their stand and articulate their view to the national/international media within 30-60 minutes of any major development unfolding nationally or internationally. On any development or happening the government must be the first to react proactively and should not let the opposition seize this opportunity. Any utterances by the government spokesperson must be well thought out and rehearsed and should not be made in an  impromptu manner. The articulation must evolve with the changing developments.

STRATEGIC THINKING UNITS (STUs): Any successful individual or a corporation has a strategic plan for himself or the corporation for 6 months, 12 months, 1 year, 2 year, 3 year or 5 years. Successful individuals and corporations rely on their strategic planning ability to guide their forward momentum along a well defined path so that they are not run astray. A government can least afford to run on auto pilot but instead the government machinery should be alert to every creek and groan emanating from any corner of India and the society and should factor this in mind while formulating its way forward. The Strategic Thinking Unit of the BJP government should consist of 10-15 high calibre individuals from the political, defence, economic, scientific, technological, academic, IAS, communication fields so that they can give directions to the governments future plans and the government knows where it is heading and which path it must tread.

COVERT/OVERT OPERATIONS GROUP (COOG): The Covert/Overt Operations Group (COOG) should consist of elite members of the defence/paramilitary forces, the RAW/IB, and specialists from the political/bureaucratic fields. Their job should be to give caliberated, high powered responses to enemies of the Indian state whether internal or external. But first what constitutes an enemy of the indian state must be formulated and deliberated carefully and this definition must be made public through newspaper advertisements. Their job must be to help in influencing elections in foreign countries to those parties which are favourable to India, toppling anti-Indian elements, liquidating/neutralising inimical forces on foreign soil, cutting off finances and communications of enemies of state, isolating and cornering inimical forces and so on. COOG must operate and work in strict secrecy and their activities must never be made public.

HANDLING OPPOSITION INSPIRED HATE DISSENTERS (HOIHD): Clearly, the people who have returned the state awards in droves over the last 2 months come in this category as also those who vehemently and openly criticise the government on flimsy grounds. If these artists have returned the state awards then the government should also give them something in return in kind: this could be a garland of shoots (not shoes), certificate of intolerance (not tolerance), they should be shown black flags, and many innovative ways to give them the same coin back in kind. Opposition inspired hate dissenters must be denied state patronage, their perks and perquisites must be withdrawn, they must be exposed in the public eye, they must be isolated within their fraternity, etc.  Further, the political party which instigates and orchestrates such organised conspiracy must be confronted with proof and it must be exposed in the public through rallies, etc.

RSS/WINGS MUST HAVE COORDINATED APPROACH: The RSS and its wings the VHP, Bajrang Dal, Durga Vahini, Hindu Mahasabah, and many more are truly doing a great job in protecting, safeguarding Hindu culture, customs and in promoting moderate Hindutva. But the RSS and its wings must not fly in  20 different directions, give 10 different statements on issues to media and do contrarian things. The RSS and its myriad wings must make sure that they are in regular consultation with each other, their stand on any contentious issue is well thought out after consensus deliberation and they act and behave with coordinated approach and intent. The one big weakness of Hindus is that they are a very divisive community, they don’t respect the Hindu religion and are not proud of being Hindus. The RSS has done a yeoman job in uniting diverse Hindu groups. It must aggressively counter Pakistani propaganda of declaring Shiv Sena/Bal Thackeray as terrorists. This is blasphemous.