Ab ki baar, about turn sarkar

Perhaps the way the Modi government intends to deliver good governance is to do about turns on many things they used to criticize. Here are the highlights.

How important is education exactly?

Smriti Irani, a never elected, never graduate politician is heading HRD. Which in itself isn’t such an awful thing, given that lack of a degree may actually be better than learning the crap graduates often come out with, but the Minister handling education lying about education on election affidavit is a casual insult of the system BJP could have easily avoided after all their tall talks on importance of education and how UPA2 had fucked up.

To save the Ganga or not to save the Ganga?

Swami Nigamananda died under mysterious circumstances fighting the (then BJP) state government crony sand mafia to protect the Ganga. Swami Gyan Swaroop Sanand in Haridwar, who was Guru Das Agrawal, former professor of environmental engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur before becoming an ascetic has been fighting a long war to save the Ganga from ecological destruction due to hydroelectric projects and went up against the notoriously pro-large project BJP government itself several times. So did Uma Bharati, actually. There are 650 dams proposed and Uma Bharati, when she was out of the BJP had opposed them. The BJP has put Uma Bharati in charge of water resources. Yet the BJP policy remains pro hydro electric projects, and just yesterday cleared the Polavaram project on the second day of government itself with a special ordinance, which it had earlier fought tooth and nail to make a national project. So which side of BJP is to be believed? The Uma Bharati, who after all of BJP’s penchant for hydel projects is now handling Water Resources and Ganga clean up or the cabinet at large that remains firm on its old track?

CAG reports must not be used as a weapon to target political opponents

After abundant attacks on the UPA2 government using CAG reports, Modi decides that CAG reports must not be used as a weapon to target political opponents. One wonders why. Is Modi saying that CAG reports are not reliable information? Or that if CAG reports find misgovernance or bad practices, they must not be criticized?

“I personally believe that CAG reports must not be used for political gains but utilised to find solutions. I introduced such a system here and asked my men to go to the roots of problems (mentioned in CAG reports),”

Is Modi going to explain how non-BJP entities can use CAG criticism of a BJP government to find solutions other than attacking and forcing accountability? Or is Modi saying that people should cover up government failures in their own capacity?

Or is it more about devaluing CAG reports as valid criticism because CAG rapped his Gujarat government for 17,000 crore losses? BJP certainly had no hesitations using CAG reports to corner the Congress before the elections.

Talks with those who behead Indian soldiers

Modi talks to please his voters and acts to please his sponsors and there is no confusion here. After a career of criticizing UPA for any action even remotely conversational with Pakistan government, Modi suddenly has woken up to the idea of India-Pakistan peace. As recently as his pre-election interviews, he was clear that there could be no talk with Pakistan if terror continues. The chicken biryani quote will be remembered long. Then you have “Hemraj’s wife kept wailing, but this government could not get her head back.” said Modi about the UPA2 government in January. This time, Hemraj’s wife objected vociferously to his invitation to Nawaz Sharif, and how did he act any different from the UPA2 government? Modi called Nawaz Sharif “Man of Peace” when two soldiers were killed and two injured in a cross border ambush at the LoC exactly a week before his meeting with Nawaz Sharif. His super-patriotic bhakts will ignore these double standards, because they have been conditioned to believe whatever Modi does to be the right thing to do, so this isn’t any argument with them, their nation is Modi, and they are “Nationalists”. For the rest, it may be worth considering that Adani wants to build a power plant in power surplus Gujarat to export power to Pakistan. Anyway, 24 hours after Modi meeting Nawaz Sharif, his stronghold of Punjab passed an anti-Modi resolution condemning him for accusing them of terror activities anyway.

Rajnath Singh on Modi’s cabinet

Less than a month ago Rajnath Singh was saying he would not be on “Modi-led NDA alliance government” as he preferred to remain BJP president and had responsibilities. He is on the cabinet handling ministry of home affairs.

And this is just day 3.