Changing Times
If you, like me, have been single in the internet age, it's very likely that you would have come across the initialism DTR. DTR, unlike its more R-rated cousin DTF, stands for Define The Relationship.
It is a stage of dating when you and your partner figure out that now is probably a good time to, well, Define The Relationship. It is when you take stock, lay out your feelings for each other, and establish rules of the road forward.
Indian polity is fast reaching that stage when we the people have to have the same relationship talk with the government. And in my opinion, the government is in for surprise when it comes to what direction the people will want to go.
The Demographic Dichotomy
My father, as a retired senior, has ample time on his hands to watch the news 16x7 and get riled up about every culture war his favorite TV channel forces on its viewers. I often listen to questions posed by the Aam Janata to their leaders on such talk shows.
Invariably, the older, more conservative, usually male, audience members, ask questions couched in outright communal, casteist, or parochial terms. Meanwhile, younger, urban, often women, audiences question the very notion of communal disharmony. For example, a recent question asked why every debate in India quickly veers towards matters of the agonists religion or caste.
Young India is moving towards a more inclusive society where your religion is your private business while the public sphere is for questions of growth, getting along, and equality.
The dichotomy is that political parties are still pandering to older conservative male audiences. From afar, it looks like Narendra Modi is among the very very few top level politicians who recognizes this. He often talks of development though even he cannot resist the siren call of communalism albeit his response if subtle because he bashes minorities by proxy by talking up the threat of Pakistan.
The rest of the Indian political firmament is still in thrall of the BJP-Advani designed politics of Hindu supremacy. Rahul Gandhi calling himself a Shiv Bhakt and a devout Hindu during the Gujarat elections is an example of this.
GST
The Goods and Services Tax is a great idea. It broadens the tax base the right way - by taxing consumption. And It touches nearly every one.
The flip side is that it is a ready, visible reminder that the government exists and is collecting moneys from you to fund its functions.
Until now, the same GST was broken into a series of taxes with opaque names like Octroi. The relationship between what we were paying as tax and what was flowing into government coffers was not apparent.
Right away, with the introduction os GST, the average citizen is made aware that they are ultimately paying for the government. It fundamentally reverses our relationship with the government where we can now confidently tell any public functionary or bureaucrat to stuff it because we are paying their salaries.
Here's an example of this. Yet again, the young are leading the charge.
I play soccer every day with a group of kids and adults of varying ages. One day recently, the manager of the field where we play told us to move elsewhere because we were destroying his grass. Immediately, one kid pipes up and tells him that since we pay taxes, we don't have to take his permission to play in a public field. While it is true that we don't have a right to destroy a field, the confidence with which the kid told him exactly who was in charge was breathtaking. I cannot imagine a 12 year old me saying anything similar to any authority figure back when I was a kid.
Aadhar
The final bullet point is the much maligned Aadhar. As citizens, we have done our bit by identifying ourselves to the government. Now, we expect the government to step up to the plate to deliver on the promises of Aadhar.
The most interesting aspect of this is that now we can put hard facts and figures around the results of public works. For example, Aadhar was used to eliminate 3 crore wrongly issued ration cards [Latestly link].
This sort of numbers driven policy making was not in evidence earlier. I can readily imagine a situation where RTI and research think tanks demand access to public works metrics to gauge their effectiveness and call policy makers to the floor if the results are not commensurate with the costs.
The upshot is that old adage - 'What gets measured, gets fixed'.
Conclusion
The India of old is ponderously moving towards a more inclusive society with a less docile relationship with its government. It is a very encouraging development but the polity has to evolve to meet the changing views of the population.