The first thing you need to remember is that the majority of this nation did NOT vote for you. You may have gotten the majority votes comparatively, but you did NOT win the majority of the country, the people. Even in 2014, you got only 31% of the vote share, and in this election, you still received only 38% (45%, if you count the whole NDA). You may have won the majority of the seats, but you didn’t win the majority of the nation. And that’s an important distinction to remember.
Honestly, you were the response to a country which was sick of complacency and desperate for change. It was the first time we were as politically charged as we were then, and India really needed a shock to our system. But you used desperation for votes. You knew that a third world country with as many people as we have is desperate for one thing – economic development, and that was your whole spiel to get elected. But once it worked and you got the biggest victory in the government in decades, what did you do with it? Did you bring about any economic development?
The highest rates of unemployment in 45 years says no. The failure of demonetisation and the alleged rampant corruption and thoughtlessness behind the move says no. The value of the rupee falling as a consequence to that unstrategic move says no. The blatant corruption with barely an effort to actually hide the corruption behind the Rafale deal says no. All these, and what the many, many other stats say is that you care more about power than you ever did about economic development; or you care more about the economic development of yourself and your cronies.
Speaking of economic development, did you ever even consider the desperate need our country has for social development? Yes, we live in a capitalist world, but there are things which impact quality of life beyond money. What infuriates me about people in power is that you have power and yet waste it on gathering more money than you’ll be able to spend in a few lifetimes, and on power which makes you feel like you’re big, but is contingent on making other people feel small. What about the fact that India has the highest rate of youth suicide in the world? What about the price we’ve paid for your “development”, which has cost the environment a lot more than we can afford? What about the fact that India is the most unsafe country for women IN THE WORLD? What about the fact that this planet is dying, the resources India has are depleting faster and faster and YOU HAVE PROVIDED NO POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS? What about the fact that our education system is deeply flawed and is more interested in rote learning than it is in actually educating students?
What part of your economic development plan was about inciting violence towards minorities? What role did your silence on all the lynchings, all the rapes of Dalit, and other minority women and children, on the violence faced by Kashmiris, on the rising farmers suicides play in your economic agenda? Where does the Ram Mandir, and all the Hindutva talk fit into these plans?
Okay so congratulations, you’ve won another five years in office. And you got about 7% more of the voters on your side. But you still haven’t won over the majority of the country. The last five years betrayed the essence of what India is, and I would implore you to not betray it further if I believed it would have any impact. You made shallow promises to win people over, and then you didn’t even live up to those promises. And you never answered the many questions your constituents had for you. You’re a civil servant, but you haven’t served us.
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