A week is a long time in politics. And a lot of water has flown down the Yamuna this past week. There is now a new 'chhote sarkar' in Delhi and that's making the bade sarkaar a whole lot better. Here's a glimpse of what's happened in the last seven days
1) The Modi government has restarted talks with Pakistan.
2) The PM has made his first, direct outreach to the Christian community
3) The government has now reached out to the opposition, even called an all-party meeting before the Budget session for the smooth passage of bills. There was no such meeting before the previous winter session.
4) The RSS has now reacted unequivocally against the fringe elements asking them not to embarrass the government and the Prime Minister.
5) There will soon be a new government in Jammu and Kashmir between the PDP and BJP.
6) The PM's chosen man Dattatreya Hosabale will soon replace Bhaiyyaji Joshi as the pointsman between the government and the mother ship.
All of this has happened after Arvind Kejriwal's remarkable victory in the Delhi polls. The Prime Minister has realised his promise of achche din now needs to be met with action. All it took for the honeymoon to get over and the halo to slip was eight months. And that is forcing the Prime minister to up his game.
The theory of relativity plays a lot in politics. In 2014, Modi was squared against 10 years of an extremely unpopular Manmohan Singh government. He also had to merely contend with the pedestrian political skills of a Rahul Gandhi.
Mr. Modi promised India a dream and a large majority of Indians bought into that dream. Eight months on, Mr. Modi is the new Manmohan Singh. Or atleast that was the impression until the Delhi elections. He was seen as particularly quiet on the fringe elements of the Sangh, on ghar wapsi and on the attacks on Christians.
But he didn't find a compelling enough reason to make the phone call to Jhandewalan and ask the Sangh's shenanigans to rein the fringe in. The 10th of February gave him that excuse.
One of the reasons why Modi was such a successful Chief Minister was because he was able to keep the VHP, Bajrang Dal and other fringe Sangh outfits at arm's length. It's part of folklore now how little love is lost between Modi and VHP leader Pravin Togadia. For more than a decade under Modi, Togadia was virtually banned from entering Gujarat. The Prime Minister now realises he needs to do the same at the all-India level. Hence we have seen messages from the RSS top brass to the cadres not to do anything that will embarrass the Prime Minister or the government.
This verdict will do another good. It will shake up Mr. Modi from walking in the clouds and bring him down to earth. An auto driver explained the Delhi verdict to me so succinctly, "Modiji achche hain. Lekin who international level pe chalte hain, Obama ke saath. Lekin hamare kaam karne keliye koi local banda chahiye. Woh Kejriwal hain." (Modiji is a nice man. But he is at the international level with Obama. For solving our problems we need someone at the local level. That person is Kejriwal.)
And finally, I'm willing to wager that there are many more people within the BJP who are happy at the Delhi verdict than outside. Many feel this will force the Modi-Amit Shah combine to change strategy and become more democratic. Here's a second-hand story to illustrate the point.
Our BJP reporter confronted a senior party leader and minister on verdict day, asking him "achche din aa gaye?" To which he replied, "haan, aaj se, achche din shuru ho gaye." Hopefully, this verdict will lead the PM to listen to his 'inner voice" more often.
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