I know you would not agree with me on the title, but for the benefit of the few who I want to convince, I did not use the more emphatic title, “Why Javdekar should be the Next Prime Minister.” For many, there is not even a need of any article to support this view, this certainty, which is perhaps the reason why you have not found any article on this till now.
Writing about intellectual giants is no easy task, for their multifarious qualities overwhelm the very best writer, and I am far from that. We have to start somewhere, like we do with Nehru, the greatest of them all, and his silver spoon that spawned the golden age of socialism, or Gandhi and his love for nonviolence, truth, and spinning yarns. Javdekar, on the other hand, has no such ostentatious lies about him.
We can look at a different perspective and ask, “What qualities should a Prime Minister have?”
An elected representative of people, you may say, or at least, a past experience of political achievements, but you would be wrong on both the counts. We have had Prime Ministers who have been selected and Prime Ministers who have slept on the job despite political achievements. So one, or rather two, for Javdekar.
We have the wrong habit of looking at achievements as a measure of success. The issue with achievements is that they are extrinsic, effects rather than cause. We need to look at intrinsic qualities like farsightedness, honesty, passion, gumption, and other such clichés.
Javdekar and farsightedness? Well, let us look at how he has handled the ministry that he holds, the most important ministry that was given to him, foresightedly, so to say, by Modi because he, the diviner of men (and women too), sensed the hidden depths of Javdekar. When people wax eloquent on how Modi has the knack of keeping nefarious folks from his own party at bay, what makes you think that this knack does not extend to finding hidden gems and revealing their worth?
We often hear the political adage, “Children are the future voters.” Javdekar knows this very well, and it is naïve to assume that he is doing nothing for children. When he said that he is not interested in rewriting or correcting the history in school textbooks, he was being blamed for accelerating civilizational suicide, whatever that means. Such superficial knee-jerk reactions are a bane, and ironically, the more information people have on their fingertips, the more superficial their reactions are. What Javdekar did, smartly, is reduce the syllabus by half. If you were a student, what would you prefer? A syllabus that is cut into half, or a syllabus that is twice as large as what Javdekar promises. The choice is simple now, and the choice is simple later when you, the student, go out to vote for the first time.
As we are on education, I know the next question would be: What about RTE? I would contend that the criticism against Javdekar on RTE is a classic case of myopic herd mentality. What about RTE? Adversity, says a quotation, makes a man wise, and this applies to educational institutions too. What is the point of mushrooming schools who get their way with a hoard of students and their own syllabi? In the end, they can only create and perpetuate mediocrity because they have had it easy. On the other hand, schools that have gone through intense hardships, when they survive, become the torchbearers of grit and gumption, creativity and innovation, strength and resolution, for they have passed through the agni pariksha of RTE. It takes the politically savvy mind of Javdekar to take the originally ominous designs of the UPA government on RTE and turn them on their head and to our own advantage. Remember this when NEP sees the light of the day. In fact, this agni pariksha approach is also the reason why Fadnavis could also be the next Prime Minister, but he has to wait.
With such cogent arguments now, I know that you can only resort to what is called whataboutery: What about Karnataka then? What about Rajasthan now? While it is undeniable that BJP did not form the government in Karnataka despite the almost watertight strategy of the party in appointing the poll in-charge for a state from some other state, Javdekar could hardly be responsible for this, and neither would he be responsible similarly for Rajasthan. Politics is about winning battles, and as we all know, we can lose a war to win a battle. In political terms, we can rather be in opposition and wait instead of being in power and fail. If not for the political perspicacity of Javdekar, which has been reluctantly acknowledged even by Shah, today BJP would be struggling with internal state politics rather than gearing up as one unit for 2019 elections.
But, you may smartly put your finger on the right spots. Does Javdekar have the skills to navigate the complex landscape and seascape of foreign policy, national security, micro-, meso-, and macroeconomics, intricacies of providing passports and visas to aggrieved people, environmental safety, minority affairs, and finally, the inertial bureaucracy?
Firstly, Javdekar believes in delegating these to the right ministers unlike Modi who believes in doing everything by himself without realizing that there are only 24 hours in a day even if you have 282 (less now) members in Lok Sabha. If Javdekar does nothing, a false charge that is often ascribed to him as most people do not understand strategic prorogation, he delegates it to the bureaucracy instead of doing nothing all by himself. While the bureaucracy gets brickbats for doing nothing on behalf of Javdekar, it does not mind much because, firstly, it does not have a mind, and secondly, it has found a minister who understands that the bureaucracy likes to do nothing.
Secondly, one must not forget that Javdekar has held various positions in the past ranging from a nonviolent satyagrahi during the second worst Emergency that India has ever faced, during Indira Gandhi’s time (the worst is, obviously, now) to a self-motivated proponent of purple phone on the ill-effects of electromagnetic radiation. In fact, he has even written books, not on insipid poems, but on social issues such as unemployment, loan waivers, and inflation.
Thirdly, neither did Modi have any such experience when he donned the mantle of a Prime Minister.
“Fine,” you agree with reluctance, for no one likes to be proved wrong, and there is always a but somewhere, “but what about Modi and Shah? Will they not prevent a highly qualified Javdekar from becoming the PM?”
Well, did Advani prevent Modi?
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Don’t know about Pakya, but NM does have a knack of recognizing people. Good as well as evil ones.
Pakya may be doing what he’s doing( or not doing what he’s not doing) as per the instructions of NM. So he may have been picked for that specific trait… of following instructions to the T.
I still remember, when Pakya was picked, not many( including yours truly) had heard of him. Many RW celebrities( anyone with 2k+followers), who now hurl abuses at him at the drop of a hat, were disseminating gyaan about how he is a good choice and a loyal BJP waala.
Now the same folks diss him for being loyal. (Facepalm emogi here)
All in all, I think what Pakya is doing is under explicit instructions from his boss.
Signed,
A Namo Bhakt.