Three years after

Three years after

NDA government has been truly transformative on foreign policy, less so in other areas.
As the NDA government completes three years at the Centre today, there is one arena where its rule has been truly transformative: foreign policy. Indian diplomacy has lost its hallmark diffidence and stepped up its game from introverted non-alignment to outward-looking and proactive multi-alignment. Above all it has been energised by the personal commitment of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who set the tone for innovation during the NDA government's inauguration itself by inviting neighbouring Saarc countries to the swearing-in ceremony.
Since then Modi has improved India's engagement and cooperation with neighbouring countries (save Pakistan), invited foreign investment, engaged India's diaspora in many countries, ramped up strategic ties with the US, complemented India's `Look East' programme with outreach to West Asia, looked to engage Pakistan while also moving to isolate it when Pakistan rebuffed his efforts and supported multiple terror strikes in India. NDA's approach to economic policy has been less transformative as it has more or less continued, with some repackaging and rebranding, UPA's approach of incremental reform grafted on to a populist framework.
Make in India is off to a slow start, balance sheets of public sector banks remain impaired by non-performing assets which holds back growth of credit, job generation hasn't taken off and India doesn't appear to be realising its demographic dividend. On the plus side NDA has scored well on macroeconomic stability, brought down fiscal deficits which soared during the UPA years, controlled inflation (helped, no doubt, by falling oil prices). But these gains may be threatened now by fiscal irresponsibility on the part of states: the loan waiver granted by the UP government after the BJP victory there could trigger a race to the bottom among states.
On social policy the atmosphere has turned distinctly worse with food bans, gau rakshaks being allowed to take the law into their hands, a spate of lynchings and an uptick in intolerance, accompanied by statements from BJP leaders which seem to equate dissent ¬ which is normal in a democracy ¬ with sedition. It's worth remembering that the lynching of a Kashmiri trucker by gau rakshaks in late 2015 gave an enormous fillip to separatist agitation in Kashmir, now raging out of control. The good news for NDA, however, is that opposition parties are in utter disarray. This gives the government time to rectify its mistakes while accentuating its positives. Given a somewhat hostile international environment shaping up today, India needs to fire on all cylinders.