Yes, it cannot be compared and it is
nowhere near to the history-defining moment of 1947 when Jawahal Lal Nehru
delivered the epoch-making midnight ‘Tryst with Destiny’ speech 67 years ago on
India
It is another history-defining aspect
of India , Indian politics
and Indian democracy that Jawahar Lal Nehru’s run as India ’s
first prime minister that continued for many years went on to establish a
political dynasty in India
Remember, the Mahatma, the Father of
the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi had said to wind up the Indian National Congress in
1948 – “My suggestion is that, in so
far as the Congress was intended solely to achieve Swaraj and that purpose has
been gained – though I do not think what we have gained is full and real Swaraj
– this organisation should be wound up, and that we should put to use all the
energies of the country.”
Yes, that should never be the case. We cannot undo the past
but we can think of the future based the day now. And we can hope so with a
prime minister who has no family and who has willingly and honestly kept his
separated wife (with mutual consent and in harmony) and his extended family
away from any possibility of political patronage.
And the tryst with politics this year on the Indian
Independence Day was about this man only and the sort of political changes that
India has seen with him
after the results of the Lok Sabha elections 2014 were declared on May 16, 2014
giving an absolute and overwhelming majority to a non-Congress party since the Independence
The other time when a non-Congress political outfit had got
clear majority on its own was in 1977, the watershed elections after the
Emergency that sent Indira Gandhi packing, but the 295 seats of the BLD (Bharatiya
Lok Dal) also included some 28 seats won by Jagjivan Ram’s Congress for
Democracy (CFD). Janata Party had contested the election on BLD’s symbol and in
alliance with CFD. And that makes the BJP (Bhartiya Janata Party) tally of 280 on
its own in this election the largest ever for a non-Congress political party.
And that person played the central role in it. His intense campaigning,
his direct approach and highly commendable and successful governance record
coupled with his nationalist and pro-Hindutva branding, aided superbly by the
sky-high anti-incumbency against the Congress-led Manmohan Singh government
pushed the BJP from some expected 200-220 mark to 280 seats in the final tally.
No one had expected so, not when no single party had been
able to win clear majority after the 1984 elections, not even Congress.
And the political tryst this year has made that possible. The
turn of political events this year has given the world’s largest democracy a
prime minister in Narendra Modi who began his life from the weakest
socioeconomic layer of the Indian society, worked hard, rose steadily and
gradually and ousted the most powerful political dynasty of the country from
the seat of power. It was an impressive win and a humiliating defeat.
A required tryst in Indian politics after 67 years of Independence
