Ignore the noise: Modi is right to snub Advani, Jaswant

The BJP’s ancient regime is in tatters. In the case of Jaswant Singh, Atal Behari Vajpayee’s Finance and Foreign Minister, it is in tears. It would seem the BJP is in a civil war with its former Deputy Prime Minister in a sulk, its once powerful Education Minister in angry exile from his constituency and another Finance and Foreign Minister in voluntary retirement. In conventional wisdom, this is damaging for the BJP as it readies itself for a General Election it is widely expected to win. In reality, it is precisely what the party needs if it wants to do more than simply capture power.

Any exercise to radically alter the path of India’s halting, almost stalled, progress – something that BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi has promised to do—will require the felling of several ancien regimes (also called vested interests). It is, therefore, a good sign that Modi is able to face down his own party’s dead wood, whatever the short term political costs of doing so. Because if he succumbs to the resistance within, he has little chance of overcoming the resistance that he will face in reforming the moribund but entrenched institutions (and interests) in India.

One of Modi’s more attractive promises in his campaign for PM has been the promise to give manufacturing a big boost. India needs manufacturing to contribute much more than a measly 15 percent of GDP if it wants to create jobs for the hundreds of millions underemployed or unemployed in the countryside.

He isn’t going to be able to do this unless he can radically alter India’s labour laws.  And that will require staring down not just labour unions but also powerful political interests within his own party and across the political spectrum.

One would not have much hope from someone who could not stand up to three or four disgruntled, ageing politicians in his own party, There are other tough reforms which a potential Prime Minister Modi will have to push. How will he cut down the Government’s enormously wasteful and misdirected subsidies bill and trim ineffective welfare programmes unless he has the will to stand up to a loud chorus of dissent?

It is easy to term anyone who takes tough decisions as dictatorial and undemocratic but leadership isn’t about succumbing to every note of dissent. It is about persuading the majority while displaying a certain ruthlessness to affect change. It is common practice in most democracies. Margaret Thatcher was a decisive leader who stared down vested interest to reform Britain.

On the other side of the political spectrum, Tony Blair cut out the Labour Party’s out-of-date old guard to bring the party back to power after 18 years in opposition.  In the US, there are comparable examples. Ronald Reagan was the radical reformer who ruffled feather on the Republican side while Bill Clinton was the modernizer who shook up the Democrats. All of them had detractors, but they were decisive in beating down vested interests and won popular support for that.

Modi has done the right thing by stamping his authority over the BJP and not succumbing to tantrums of an irrelevant old guard. At some point, most likely in opposition, Rahul Gandhi will need to show the same kind of determination to reform the Congress and cut its dead wood. That is the only way to reinvent the grand old party for another shot at power.

Leaders of mettle are not afraid of the noise that accompanies the fall of the ancien regime.