The 2014 Indian general elections for the selection of sixteenth Lok Sabha was completed in nine phases and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was declared victorious. Former Chief Minister of Gujarat and an active member of BJP, Narendra Damodardas Modi became the fourteenth Prime Minster of India. The change of government in India under the BJP after a decade long rule (2004-2014) of Congress party’s United Progressive Alliance (UPA) initiated a debate at regional and international levels. The intellectual community in different regions started expressing their opinions and contesting arguments on the scope of Indian politics under Prime Minister Modi by examining New Delhi’s domestic politics. Parallel to regional and global levels, the local intellectual circles in India tried to forecast the future of their county under the newly elected Prime Minister.
The book under review is one effort done by a local Indian writer, Anil Bhat. A commissioned officer of 19th Battalion of the Madras Regiment in 1972 and a Public Relations Officer of India Army from 1993 to 1999, Anil Bhat has vast experience of looking at politics from different angles. On the basis of his diverse services, Bhat was decorated with the Vishisht Seva Medal (VSM) and has also contributed his intellectual work in New Delhi based Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) as a research fellow.
The book Modi’s Blueprint for India is a collection of thirteen short essays written by different writers. The combination of cited and uncited pieces of writing collected from different authors is an attempt by Bhat to provide an exceptional work on India. The book starts discussion from the election results in the first chapter after formally introducing the main theme of the writer’s study and ends at outlining the domestic problems of Indian society. First two chapters The Beginning of the Modi Era by Siva Sivaoragasam and For a Meaningful Engagement with Parliament by P D T Achary contain arguments of the book. Both writers praise the 2014 general elections along with the success of BJP and admire the role of Modi in the politics of Gujarat while tentatively estimating the bright scope of his tenure as Indian Prime Minister. The subsequent debate in remaining chapters briefly points out the internal and external problems the Indian political system is facing today. In this way, every chapter covers a different topic respectively.
The third and fourth chapters written by Anil Bhat and Maj Gen GD Bakshi talk about the issues of national security. The fifth chapter explains the energy security issues in India and the nature of New Delhi’s growing energy demands. Talmiz Ahmad under India’s Energy Security: Emerging Challenges attempts to provide an overview of India’s standing in world politics while examining New Delhi’s potential in international relations for the security of its energy supplies. The sixth and seventh chapters lead the debate towards various issues of foreign policy which need serious attentions of policymakers. Sudhir Singh highlights the challenges of traditional foreign policy mechanism of New Delhi after the 2014 elections, and Pankaj Jha tries to suggest suitable ways for the newly elected prime minister to overcome major foreign policy issues. Rest of the six chapters speak about miscellaneous themes which cover the questions from rapid urbanization and infrastructural challenges to BJP’s interaction with political difficulties and diplomatic hitches. The structure of outdated conventional education system, lack of effective good governance, abysmal condition of women rights and unpleasant situation of road safety laws in the end complete the book.
The edited work of Bhat is an endeavour to cover a long range of topics in a single volume which is not only difficult, but a non-academic task as well. The unique outlook of the book is inherited in combination of research, opinion, and survey based writings and leaves the readers in an uncertain direction where it is difficult to comprehend the central theme of the book. Furthermore, the admiration for Modi’s political past repeatedly comes under discussion and all writers have avoided focussing on the critical aspects of Modi’s personality. The book overestimates the newly elected prime minister without revealing his actual connection to the 2002 Gujarat riots. It was the wave of inter-communal violence in Gujarat under the leadership of Modi which added a new chapter in the history of bloodshed in South Asia. Anil Bhat’s work is an attempt of showing and polishing one side of the coin only by admiring Modi’s role in Indian politics. Bhat’s way of expressing his intellectual insight further isolates him from main domains of journalistic and academic writings. Instead of giving an actual overview of the Modi regime, the book is less inclined toward an impartially analytical approach. Therefore, lack of a balanced approach of outlining the contents further deteriorates the ranking of this book in mainstream intellectual writings. In this way, Modi’s Blueprint for India is an appropriate book consisting of different readings which may be good for briefly understanding various internal and external issues faced by New Delhi presently.
The book is recent study of different sectors in Indian politics by linking the issues of foreign policy to national security and associating the issues of welfare to the mainstream internal politics. In this way, all contributors in the book feel that the Modi should seriously address internal and external issues simultaneously. Adequate measures to overhaul the social, political and economic infrastructure of New Delhi coupled with modernization of mainstream defence industry have become the dire need of the Indian nation. Moreover, an altered policy for managing foreign relations of New Delhi is another area that requires serious attention of Modi, according to Bhat. Anil Bhat has authored Information and Security: Where Truth Lies (Manas), Assam Terrorism and the Demographic Challenge, and After Abbottabad: Terror to Turmoil in Pakistan, but the book under review on Modi‘s political career is an attempt to paint a different picture of Indian politics parallel to emphasizing some issues of national security and foreign policy.
