DNA Edit: First 100 days - Modi 2.0 has a head start over Modi 1.0

The one thing can be said with certainty about the first 100 days of Modi 2.0 is that it has done more than what was achieved in the first 100 days of Modi 1.0.

While 100 days is a tiny blip in a regime’s five-year term, it would be no exaggeration to suggest that Prime Minister Modi’s second term has been cataclysmic, as far as political changes go. While government ministers have understandably gone to town about the ‘decisive’ government, which brooked no delays; the Congress, equally understandably, saw not a single merit in the first 100 days.

The truth lies somewhere in between. While abrogating Article 370 in Kashmir is something that the status-quoist Congress could never have dreamt of doing, it has certainly set Modi’s popularity soaring. Addressing a public rally in Haryana’s Rohtak, the PM said the first 100 days were a story of “development, trust, big changes in the country, decisiveness, dedication, and good intention”.

Politically, he has emerged much stronger after his party’s stunning victory in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Not a day goes when members of other political parties, including the Congress, are not queuing up to join the BJP in all the four corners of the country.

Modi’s handling of Pakistan, vis-à-vis Kashmir, where Islamabad has been reduced to wringing its hands in despair, has certainly established him as a leader of considerable standing. The near acceptance of Article 370 as an internal affair of India has been the hallmark of Modi’s diplomacy. From the USA to Russia and from England to France, all world powers have endorsed New Delhi’s position, thereby totally isolating Pakistan. 

His one-on-one dalliances with President Xi Jinping of China, among the world’s most powerful leaders, reveal how he has assiduously cultivated the strongman from Beijing, effectively neutralising him in his first 100 days, a process which began in 2014. 

Yet, all has not been well on the economic front in the past 100 days. The Indian economy has been sluggish, to say the least. GDP growth in the first quarter of financial year 2019-20 slipped to a six-year low of 5% and the Indian rupee depreciated 3.65% against the dollar in August.

This is the steepest decline in the Indian currency in the last six years. The benchmark S&P BSE Sensex has tumbled over 7% between May 30 and September 6, 2019. But, most analysts tend to overlook the fact that downturns are also cyclical, and closely linked to the global economic structure.

The decline in auto sales is being cited as the high point of the slowdown. It would be instructive to remember that India is not isolated in this case. USA, China and Japan, too, are emerging from the worst auto slowdown in decades, thanks to mandatory compliance with BS-VI emission norms that will take effect from 2020. Still, there is no harm in being introspective. The number of economic reform measures announced by the Finance Minister in the last couple of weeks, would certainly pull things around, if the government displays the same political will it has in Kashmir.