NDA anniversary celebrations focus on Narendra Modi

Perhaps because overall economic and political picture is not very reassuring

Not unaccountably, the focus of the BJP, and the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in celebrating the third anniversary of its formation today is Mr Modi himself. This underlines his critical importance not just for the BJP but to all those who seek to overturn the past associated with the era of “the Congress system”, which had an overlay of liberal and Left thought — an interregnum founded in opposition to colonial rule with which names like Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru were associated. Without Mr Modi, the BJP runs the risk of returning to being a ragtag outfit. No wonder the third anniversary celebrations are centred on the “great leader” — starting with the carefully thought-out acronym of MODI, which stands for the “Making of Developed India”. MODI is to be a three-week-long festival. It envisages some 450 senior ministers and BJP leaders hurling themselves at 900 points across the country to spread the message of the “achievements” of the Modi government. What these might be is surely debatable.

The successes are too few to name. Unemployment, according to the government's Labour Bureau, is the highest in three years, banks remain in crisis, businesses are not investing, farmer suicides have risen. On the whole, the overall economic picture does not offer too much reassurance. On the political side, fragile Kashmir is burning. The Opposition parties are under attack. In foreign affairs, relations with China, Pakistan and Nepal — the most consequential neighbours — have slid badly.