The onset of spring ought to have been celebrated with gusto, at least by the middle class families as they had to spend their days locked inside their homes. The spring brought their liberation but missing was celebration on the Vasant Panchami by all. The deprived classes were still looking for avenues of sustenance as most had lost their earning abilities either through loss of employment or by lock down on their road side trade opportunities. But the middle classes had occasion for jubilation as the finance minister Nirmala Seetharaman indicated in parliament only 40 hours earlier that the NaMo government intended to gradually return to privatization from era of no private enterprises for seven decades under 14 previous regimes.

For a clear majority among the conservative Indian middle class, the loathsome period was 18 year of the Nehru era. He had imposed the mandatory license system for any and every new enterprise or even for expansion of existing one to keep pace with expanding demand for their product. With notion of commanding heights to the public sector for rapid economic development, he had assigned the process of development to his government. The capital, the man power for running public sector enterprises came only from, by and of the government with no role to the middle class. After a decade of the planned economic development, even the Prime Minister was worried over rising level of corruption while the economy was moving upwards only at a snail’s pace.

In the last five years of the Nehru era, it was routine at every gathering of the middle class adults to abuse the Nehru era for rapid growth of corruption and reduction in incomes to the middle class families due to higher slabs of income and wealth tax. No one at such gathering was worried that nearly two thirds of Indians were forced to sustain their life at per head earnings of quarter of a rupee every day. It was not surprising ignorance. Even Nehru did not know till the socialist leader Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia did not cause noisy scene in Parliament.

The critics of the rampant growth of corruption in the license, permit era overlooked that corruption was always the two way traffic. Both the giver and the taker belonged the middle class and both ignored the intense damage to social fabric they caused by their immorality. But the bribe givers held the era responsible. They believed, their wealth earning in anyway was their divine right.

The conservative minds disliked Indira Gandhi after she nationalized 20 major banks in July 1969 and ended proximity to power to old guard in her party under the belief of the rightists conspiring to remove her from the throne. The rightists old guard- rejected by her- combined with other rightists in opposition to defeat her in 1971 but she had won over the deprived, the Dalit and minorities to defeat the conservatives. Stung by the defeat and leftist swing to the economy by her, conservatives took to loathe her regime. Divide of the society continued even after. The conservative minds could not disassociate the Congress from their intense dislike as the regimes that used their tax money to feed hungry poor.

The general belief that the three generation of the Nehru family, who were in the throne for 38 years of 42 years since Independence, pandered to the Muslims ’ interest on the pretext of secularism. It was not true. It was a fight over economic benefits that the Muslims got under the governmental relief programmes. The major portion of the Muslim population in India was languishing in the abyss of socio-economic deprivation and lack of education along with others. The ruling persons may have found it easier to exploit their poverty to ensure their votes than to provide them real succor. But th opponents used them to consolidate their support base. Only Shea Muslims who came to India in ninth century AD to escape atrocities by the Sunni sect in Afghanistan were in better economic conditions as they preferred trading to agriculture for sustenance of life. Overwhelming proportion among the Muslims remained poor as they were illiterate and without any specific skills.

The intense dislike for their getting a large packet of charity based relief was easier to hide under the cover of intense prejudice on the religious grounds as the Muslims believed in and prayed the almighty not listed in the Indian varieties. The majority among the Indian Muslims was formed by those who converted to seek the social equality they were denied in the main pantheons of Indian origins. It did not improve their economic condition though. They also realized a decade before the new century arrived that they were exploited for their votes rather than for really improving their economic ability.

The demolition of the Babari on December 6 of 1992 became a major turning point of Indian politics. It led to eliminate the belief that the Congress as a political party is capable of or even really interested in providing the protection to the minorities or in their welfare. The communal carnage of March 2002 in Gujarat again connected with the Ayodhya temple-masjid issue made the Muslim to discard completely the Congress. The party had lost its assured support base in every social grouping. Of 17 elections to the Lok Sabha so far since the first in 1952 the party had obtained a clear majority only in seven of first eight. It was heavily short of majority in last ten elections. The party was ultimately reduced in strength so much that it could not get even numbers adequate enough to be official opposition in last two elections.

Even though Narendra Modi as the Gujarat chief minister sunk neck deep in the dirty poodle of allegations of a communal approach in his governance, he created unique history of getting a majority for the election symbol that had failed in 12 of 14 previous elections (and in two elections in 1977 and 1980 it was not used.) He won on his promise to convert India to be super economy. The religious prejudices and social separations were submerged. After his successive second unprecedented win, he appears to be turning his economics to serve interests of only the middle class and thus shrinking his support base. The farm laws to reform and to hand over the retail grain sector to private traders and also denying the judiciary as avenue to seek justice to farmers was first step. And handing over entire economy to private hands through privatization gamble is his second move. In other words, he is attempting to put the Indian economy in private hands that have thus far prove to be interested in the own betterment. Society, community and country are not the Pillars, in their thinking that make India. The lack of celebrations of the spring arrival can be understood only explained thus.