Run-Up To 2019: New Normal vs Old Normal

The old normal is dead, the new normal is here. Decaying over decades and bereft of ideas for resurgence, the wretched hangover of a humiliating past had to perish. All its vestiges had to be buried deep, all memories erased so that it did not haunt India again. A happy India cannot prosper on a cesspool of negatives, the trumpeters of the ‘new’ told us five years ago.

The old normal, they said, was defeatist, servile, under-confident and without any sense of pride. It thrived on borrowed ideas of conquerors. Designed to serve the latter’s selfish interests, it systematically destroyed our own ancient knowledge system. It consciously demeaned the nation’s achievements. Neither the education nor the institutions nor the legal reforms they brought in were in alignment with the needs and culture of the country. The history we have been handed down was written from the perspective of the conquerors. It deliberately ignored or underplayed the valour of Indians.

The aberration in the narrative was made worse by the infusion of alien ideas of the Left. The latter invaded all spaces, including culture and arts, and painted them in the colour of their ideology.

The Left intellectual system imposed on the country its own version of the truth, bulldozing every view. All this had to change, with a level playing field for all ideas, they reasoned.

The nation was convinced. Those were the worst possible years. Scandals broke almost on a daily basis. The numbers involved were humongous. The economy presented a gloomy picture. Policy paralysis had left it crippled. The political class had lost touch with people
they represented. The words they uttered reeked of fatigue. They did not resonate with the man on the street. The country was stuck in a time warp and the ineffectual leadership provided no way out. The old had to go. It had lost the justification for survival.

It voted for change in 2014. It was a resounding mandate for the outlier. The country finally had the leader it always missed. His words had instant connect with people at home. On the world stage he made it clear that India had arrived to reclaim its due space.