Defining, risk-taking moments in a government's life don't usually arrive in the first year itself. When the UPA government had to take a stand on the India-United States nuclear deal, it waited till the summer of 2008, with about 12 months left in its five-year term (2004-09) to break away from the Left. At test was the government's credibility and its ability to withstand dissent and pressure, from the opposition and even supporting parties, for a cause it believed in and which it felt was of long-term benefit.
For the Narendra Modi government, precisely these calculations have come to determine its repeated promulgation of the ordinance amending the Land Acquisition Act of 2013, and its approach to what promises to be a titanic parliamentary and perception battle to get the legislation through. Yet, it has arrived before the first anniversary of the government. Why has Prime Minister Modi taken this unorthodox and unconventional step in a polity marked by safety-first tendencies?
There are those in the BJP who honestly feel Rahul Gandhi simply doesn't understand these details, and his opposition to the amendments that the Modi government has drafted - as well as his near glorification of agriculture - is at odds with Indian reality. For example, Gandhi argues 60 per cent of India's population is employed in agriculture and is against the Modi government's land acquisition amendments. However, half this number owns no land at all.
Relatedly, in the same year, a National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) report found 56 per cent of small farmers - those with less than 100 square metres of farmland - earned the majority of their income in the form of wages from an external job. Agricultural income was marginal to their household expenses.
There is also frustration with the serial stonewalling in the Rajya Sabha and therefore a keenness to put the opposition in its place. This was particularly felt after the 2014 winter session of Parliament, which was a washout with the government able to achieve very little. The ordinance amending the Land Acquisition Act was promulgated right after that. In a sense, it was the BJP-led government's first important economic legislation. Many of its other economic bills - Insurance, GST, even Coal - have been legacies from the past, and part of the unfinished business of the UPA years.
On the other hand, if Modi cannot get the amendments passed it will be a significant blow to his government's credibility. He realises that and is doing what he does best - preparing for a take-no-prisoners outcome.
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