Modi is India's only hope

Arising tide takes all ships up in its crest, it is said.

As India's capitalist democracy matures, a quantum leap is needed to deliver equal prosperity to all at the bottom of the pyramid.

More so as Prime Minister Narendra Modi strives to play catch-up midway through his term targeting eight per cent growth this year.

Politics

As famous Roman philosopher Marcus Cicero said, "A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious", but let us not allow self-appointed vigilantes or the rabid motormouths to succeed in subverting the larger agenda, a work-in-progress, for the good of all.

For that to happen, we need to transcend the credos of the last century of caste, creed or the divisiveness of religion; as also go beyond prototyping governments as "anti-poor, pro-rich", which forces rulers to regress into politics of povertarianism just to correct their image perceptions.

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India, projected as the most populous country by 2025, is ill-equipped to leapfrog into the future without a futurist PM who works furiously at digitising his cabinet with a "NaMo app", or a team of futurist entrepreneurs: the Zuckerberg equivalents of India, creating virtual reality (VR), transforming the way we manage our lives and giving us new communication platforms like "metaverse"; or enabling Skype consultations with the best expertise cross the globe.

A villager equally needs those breakthroughs in creative disruptions to talk to the best practitioner in the nearest metro, as much as an affluent patient needs to connect to the best medical practitioner he can afford across the globe.

Capitalism

This is "entrepreneurial capitalism", by far the most progressive system of economic gains for the benefit of all sections of society, compared to state capitalism, oligarchic or crony capitalism, because breakthroughs in technology and innovation give us a better world, and the founders the profits they deserve.

Would we then resent that innovator-entrepreneur his runaway profits, and his oligopolic sway on his patents?

As the "internet of things" (IOT) gains momentum, we can do things we never could 15 years ago.

These same companies will go through a predictable economic cycle of "form, fatten and then fail" eventually, so they deserve the windfall gains at their peak.

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If Zuckerberg wants to rule VR; Apple the smartphone market; or Google wants to reign as the king of search, is it unfair capitalism?

If we want drones to be used one day as mobile hospitals or get virtual teachers to educate remote areas, we have to pay the price for ingenuity and inventions.

As inequality analyst Bob Lord says, "It may feel unfair to have a world with such trillionaires, but to drive society forward, we've got to let it happen," if we want driverless vehicles and a PC in our hands with more computing power than a mainframe of the 1970s ever had.

Democracy

Nascent democracies inevitably pass through the route of bandit, or "Turbo-Capitalism" before they grow into responsible capitalism.

India has walked that path too.

Modi's "no-favourites" policy effectively halted the cronyism module of capitalism of the UPA.

We voted Modi with a majority to decimate the power of the privileged as "to the nation born", so let's get futuristic in every which way and allow change to happen.

We chose a PM, knowing well his ideological parent was the RSS, a fraternity of economic nationalists denouncing the materialism of the post-industrial era.

A rancorous Modi pre-election has grown into a matured statesman who has gone past parochial limitations of the Nagpur secretariat.

What leaders say and do pre- and post-electioneering is at variance, as much as Donald Trump would be compelled in practicality, should he accede to power in November, to relinquish his stupidity in propagating a world with borders.

If Modi can shed his past and think futurist, we need the patience to await the rabbit he intended to pull out of his hat for achhe din to come.

Because if he fails, there's no one else who can deliver for now. Let's hang in there till then.

(Courtesy of Mail Today.)