For nearly 65 years after Independence, India was governed more by political convenience than constitutional conviction. The Congress party, which dominated power for most of this period, institutionalised indecision, nurtured vote-bank politics, and allowed systemic corruption to become an accepted feature of governance. By 2014, India had not failed—but it had been deliberately restrained. Narendra Modi’s leadership represents not a change in branding, but a long-overdue correction of historical, constitutional, and administrative distortions.
This correction is evident in the replacement of MGNREGA with the VB-GRAM model. Despite carrying Mahatma Gandhi’s name—after being renamed from Jawaharlal Nehru in the 1970s—MGNREGA evolved into one of the most corruption-prone schemes, functioning as a political ATM for Congress representatives. Instead of uplifting rural living standards in the spirit Mahatma Gandhi envisioned, it subverted those ideals, degenerating into a revenue-generating mechanism for rogue politicians rather than a tool for genuine rural empowerment.
In that context, Modi’s most decisive rupture with the past came through the abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A. For seven decades, Congress treated Jammu and Kashmir as a semi-detached political enclave, sustaining dynastic elites while ordinary citizens suffered. Article 35A denied property and employment rights to women, Dalits, Valmikis, and refugees—an apartheid clause masquerading as federalism. Since its removal in August 2019, Jammu and Kashmir has witnessed record tourist inflows (over 2 crore tourists in 2023), expanded central welfare coverage, new infrastructure projects, and the extension of laws that apply to the rest of India. What Congress preserved as “special status” was, in reality, special stagnation.
Equally transformative was the criminalisation of instant triple talaq. For decades, Congress governments refused to intervene, citing minority appeasement, even as Muslim women were left legally defenceless. The Modi government chose constitutional morality over electoral arithmetic. Since the law’s enactment in 2019, reported cases of instant triple talaq have fallen sharply, while Muslim women have gained enforceable legal remedies—something Congress governments never delivered despite ruling for decades.
The same dishonesty defines the Congress narrative on the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and NRC. CAA does not revoke citizenship; it fast-tracks citizenship for persecuted Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan. Even after years of scaremongering, Congress failed to produce a single instance of citizenship being taken away under CAA. Their manufactured outrage—claiming Mahatma Gandhi was being erased—fell flat, because the public recognised it as political desperation. Gandhi’s legacy has survived far worse custodians than Narendra Modi.
Beyond headline reforms, Modi’s impact is most visible in governance delivery and corruption control. Consider latest MGNREGA, once infamous for fake job cards and siphoned funds. Through Aadhaar seeding, geo-tagging of assets, and Direct Benefit Transfers, leakages have been drastically reduced. According to government estimates, DBT reforms across schemes have saved over ₹2.7 lakh crore by eliminating ghost beneficiaries. The ongoing evolution toward asset-creating rural employment models and V-Gram-style productivity frameworks reflects a shift from wage distribution to durable rural capital—roads, water bodies, housing, and sanitation.
Modi’s governance model has also dismantled the Congress-era entitlement economy. Over 50 crore Jan Dhan accounts, 12 crore household toilets, 11 crore LPG connections, 15 crore tap water connections, and 100% saturation of key welfare schemes are not slogans—they are audited outcomes. Welfare today is rights-based, technology-driven, and corruption-resistant.
Equally significant is the decolonisation of India’s institutional mindset. Renaming colonial streets, reclaiming indigenous icons, and retiring obsolete schemes is not symbolic vanity—it is civilisational self-respect. Congress glorified colonial continuity while ignoring indigenous confidence. Modi has reversed that imbalance unapologetically.
At the macro level, structural reforms like GST, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, defence indigenisation, record highway construction (over 10,000 km annually), and digital governance have replaced policy paralysis with predictability. India’s leap in global ease-of-doing-business rankings before the index was discontinued reflected this shift.
The Congress’s discomfort with this transformation is telling. Unable to defend its six-decade record, it resorts to fear-mongering. Unable to counter outcomes, it clings to identity politics. But India has moved on.
Narendra Modi’s leadership is not about erasing history—it is about correcting it. Not about exclusion—but equal laws. Not about rhetoric—but results. After decades of drift, India finally has direction—and that explains why the old order is rattled, and increasingly irrelevant.
