The New Year marks another chapter for the nation. 2007 saw missed opportunities and shame: the impasse over the 123 Agreement, avoidable controversies over SEZs, the Nithari killings, spreading naxalism, failure to effect critical police reforms, resurgent communal and caste politics, loss of steam by the Congress-UPA alliance on account of Leftist electoral blackmail and negative vote-bank politics all round. The poor, in whose name many of these games are played, gained nothing. Media hype derailed rational thinking. India lost.

The year-end saw the Gujarat elections. Narendra Modi certainly won; but it was not such a famous victory.

Though the Congress lost Himachal too, the BJP is being excessively optimistic about racing back to power in Delhi. The Congress campaign in Gujarat was mistaken while Rahul Gandhi proved a damp squib, demonstrating that political leadership is neither inherited nor a gift of sycophancy.

Modi made development his plank; the Congress belittled this and, rather late in the day, refocussed attention on the 2002 carnage. That missile misfired. The Congress’ vote bank politics has hollowed out its secular credentials as witnessed by its mealy mouthed response to the Tehelka tapes which it choose not to pursue for fear of consolidating the Hindutva vote. “Maut ka saudagar” was not an inapt characterisation but referred to a past event which is history, like the larger 1984 riots.

It failed to comprehend the continuing and chilling process of systematic denial of justice to the 2002 victims to this day – compensation incompletely paid, continuing internal displacement, tardy prosecutions, intimidation of complainants, witnesses and legal aid teams, continuing encounter killings (as admitted in the Assembly and now before the Supreme Court as a PIL), ghettoisation by retaining hardened inter-community residential “borders” and the refusal by Hindu landlords to let out accommodation to Muslim tenants.

In his second broadcast over Doordarshan after the carnage Modi had warned “if you want peace, don’t ask for justice”. His administration has implemented that policy – and that is the gravamen of the charge of hate mongering and communalism that lies at Modi’s door.

The Congress was equally mistaken in challenging Modi’s claims regarding development, or at best attributing it to historical trends and central policies. Gujarat has done very well in terms of economic development while agriculture has benefited from five good monsoons in succession. It is its social development indices pertaining to education and health that have been disappointing.

Social development builds futures; economic (material growth) offers more immediate rewards for an entrepreneurial, aspiring and upwardly mobile society. So the development missile also misfired. Yet, the carnage of 2002 was not forgotten. Its locus in central Gujarat and in the adivasi belt saw the BJP lose a considerable number of seats.

The facile media-political assertion that the national polls are likely to reflect the aggregation of state elections and that therefore Gujarat plus Himachal plus other states that the BJP might win will deliver it power at the Centre in 2008-09 is fallacious. The discerning Indian voter differentiates between local or state issues and national governance.

The lessons are many. Modi is not set to march on Delhi personally or ideologically. He enjoys office in Gujarat and is not going to abandon this to face the double uncertainty of the BJP coming to power at the Centre and eclipsing ambitious rivals at the national level. Nor is Advani waiting to take sanyas. The BJP has not parted company with the RSS or VHP though the parivar has family differences. Yet the Modi victory in Gujarat does not necessarily mean a coming Hindutva wave.

Hindutva hawks and right of centre BJP liberals are in contention but most party strategists realise that an inclusive coalition is more likely a winning ticket than an exclusivist Hindutva platform that repels likely anti-Congress partners in another NDA-type alliance. India’s diversity is too heterogeneous to be straitjacketed.

The Congress on its part should not be paralysed by fear of elections and fail to press forward with reforms and to govern at it did over much of 2007. Populism as an election strategy is bad enough; allowing governance to be swamped by populism while in office is worse. The Congress was stymied by the Left as well as by its UPA partners and party members who feared a backlash should a mid-term poll be “imposed” on the people.

However, the mandate of office is to govern and not mark time.

There are many promises the Congress must keep. It failed to hike petroleum prices pending the Gujarat poll but cannot now afford a populist budget if it is serious about implementing the 11th plan. Nor can it keep pandering to current or potential allies by going soft on Christian bashing in Orissa, back pedalling on the Sachar reforms, allowing the Goa government to subvert on-going SEZ programmes, and letting Mayawati off the hook with an amazing inquiry report that says her disproportionate assets were largely gifted to her by party admirers.

Fortunately, these admirers have received income tax notices to explain from where they made those generous gifts. 

Good governance wins elections and respect. Let 2008 be a year of good governance.