Before going into the challenges the Modi-led government may have to face during the coming four years, it will not be irrelevant to take stock of its performance since Modi took over as PM on May 26, 2014.

His first year in office has raised two questions. Has he delivered what he had promised? Will he be able to fulfill his commitments in the remaining four years of his government’s term? The answer of the first question is a big NO.

Notwithstanding the publicity blitzkrieg by Modi’s backroom experts, the functioning of his government is marked less by achievements and more by failures. Before dwelling on the failures, it will be unfair to not to recount some of its achievements.

Modi’s most spectacular achievement has been on the foreign policy front. He has joined the club of most travelled world leaders and is perhaps India’s first prime minister to travel to 18 countries spending nearly 60 days of his first 365 as prime minister outside India. He managed to capture the fancy of international bureaucrats, businessmen and media alike whether it be his “rock-star-like address at US” Madison Square or a more intimate tea ceremony in Japan. During his foreign visits he also attracted huge crowds of Indians settled abroad who applauded him chanting ‘Modi, Modi’.

Among his important achievements on the domestic front include a huge reduction in big corruption involving top politicians and industrialists, the factor which had largely contributed to UPA government’s electoral setbacks and ending policy paralysis the former Manmohan Singh-led UPA-II government suffered from. Modi has lent dynamism to the PM office though it has resulted in over-centralisation of power and authoritarian trends reminiscent of the Emergency period mindset.

His foreign visits have, however, sparked controversies because of his obsession with building his personal image at the cost of the dignity of India and stature of prime minister’s office. For instance, during his visit to Germany and Canada, Modi said that “India was earlier (during the UPA rule) known as scam India” and he “vowed to change it to ‘skill India’ and promised to clean up the mess left behind during the 60 years.” The convention is that leaders holding high Constitutional offices never discuss domestic politics abroad. Modi broke this convention.

During his China visit while addressing the huge Indian crowd at Shanghai, he said China broke protocol when for the first time the Chinese President welcomed him outside Beijing. Modi’s claim was misleading as the former President Jiang Zemin had invited French President Jacque Chirac to his hometown directly in 2000.

Modi has also hurt his credibility and India’s international standing by his utterances in foreign lands. He said: “There was a time when people used to say we don’t know what sins we committed in our past life that we were born in Hindustan…..The mood (today) has changed”. The comments sparked angry reactions from opposition parties. The most sarcastic was of the former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah’s who said “it appeared there were no Indians who took pride in their country before 16 May 2014—the day when BJP stormed to power unseating the UPA government.”

A recent study by the US and UK experts says that “bragging and excessive self-promotion often backfires!” This seems to be happening in Modi’s case!

The mega negative of Modi government’s one year functioning has been communal polarisation in India’s plural and multi-cultural polity. Minorities feel insecure. Hindutva hotheads including some BJP ministers, MPs, and sadhvis made inflammatory speeches. Amit Shah says “such statements were unnecessary and errant MPs have to be dealt with.” Modi also expressed his disapproval of such utterances. But no action has been taken by the Modi-Shah duo against such ministers and MPs for their provocative utterances.

That in the last one year some sheen of the Modi Sarkar has worn off is also indicated by the signs of the country’s corporate world getting disillusioned because of the government’s “failure to fulfil its promise of faster growth”. The state of economy has become depressing. Corporate results have been very weak in the last two quarters. Stock markets have shed their initial euphoria. More than 50 per cent of the much trumpeted opening of crores of new bank accounts have zero balance as the poor have no money to deposit in the bank.

According to the international rating agency Moody’s, India’s trade deficit during March quarter widened, exports fell at double-digit in the opening months of 2015. The growth rate in the January-March quarter is likely to fall to 7.2 per cent from 7.5 per cent in the previous period on account of lower production and weak global demand.

One of the Modi rule’s mega failures is that there are no signs of the promised achche din for the aam admi coming in the foreseeable future. In his public address on May 25 Modi merely said he did not promise achche din for those who looted the country. They will have to face more bure din.

The Modi government seems to follow power politics golden rule that ideology and idealism lose to pragmatism when it comes to staying in power.

These developments are bound to escalate political fight between the BJP leadership and the opposition. Apparently feeling concerned over Sonia/Rahul Gandhi’s onslaughts, the prime minister countered “perhaps, she is referring to the fact that earlier extra-constitutional authorities were the ones really wielding power (during Manmohan Singh-led government).” Congress leaders may remind the prime minister that his government is being remote-controlled by the RSS. (IPA Service)