August 30, 2022. Eight Indian Navy personnel are arrested by Qatar’s intelligence agency on charges of spying for Israel.
October 26, 2023. All eight are sentenced to death.
On December 1, 2023. PM Narendra Modi meets Qatar Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani on the sidelines of Cop28.
December 28, 2024. The death sentence is commuted to life in jail.
February 12, 2024. All eight Indian Navy officials are set free.
Within 18 months of their arrest for alleged espionage and barely two months since they got the death sentence in an Islamic country, Bharat brought its Navy men back to the homeland. Modi’s opponents did not waste even this very short time to relentlessly mock him, almost celebratory about the incarceration of fellow Indians. Only to eat an unpalatable member of the aves species in the end and have its eggs smeared all over their face.
Let us look at seven such unthinkable feats that the Modi government has pulled off in the last 10 years. Not the most impactful or high-profile — that would run into several dozens — but the ones we would not perceive to be possible before 2014. These are the ones that have inspired the slogan: ‘Modi hai toh mumkin hai’ (if Modi is around, anything is possible).
Qatar and other rescues
The Qatar rescue turns on its head several accepted myths about Modi and international diplomacy. While his enemies have stubbornly called him anti-Muslim, his influence in the Islamic world keeps stupefying them into silence. No other PM has had this kind of influence.
The way his government has rescued stranded Indians from ISIS-held Syria or Covid-wrecked Iran or war-torn Yemen, or Bharat’s troops fighting from South Sudan to Djibouti, is lore now.
Pakistan had to return captured Indian pilot Abhinandan Varthaman within days in fear of a full-scale invasion.
Articles 370 and 35A
August 5, 2019, has gone down in world history as an example of how the dark, violent destiny of an entire region can be changed with the single slice of the pen by striking down legislations that enabled the darkness. Indians at most expected tinkering. They got a new Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh.
Ayodhya and other mandirs
“Mandir whine banayenge, lekin date nahin batayenge,” was the opponents’ jibe against the BJP. In the party manifesto for decades, nobody thought a temple would actually be built at the disputed Ayodhya site. After winning in the Supreme Court, the Modi government facilitated the construction in less than five years.
The Gyanvapi mosque, built after destroying a part of the Kashi Vishwanath temple, has been taken up. The Shahi Idgah at the Mathura’s Krishna Janmabhoomi is being fought in court. Amit Shah inaugurated Ma Sharda Devi temple near the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kupwara district.
And on February 14, PM Modi will inaugurate Abu Dhabi’s first Hindu temple, the BAPS mandir. All this was beyond the reach of popular imagination till now.
Demonetisation and digital payments
DeMo in itself was politically unthinkable. But Modi took the risk which no politician in his or her right mind would.
Then came the narrative that it will wreck the poor. In reality, it became the inflection point for the poor and the underdog to start trusting the BJP, which till then was known as the party of Brahmins and Baniyas.
Then the Opposition dismissively said how would the rural or urban poor use digital payments. But they did. In volumes that India today leads in digital payments, beating US and China combined.
Surgical strikes, staring down the Dragon
Nearly half a century after 1971, Indian fighter jets flew deep into Pakistan to bomb terror camps. Before that, Bharat’s commandos stormed across the borders in Pakistan and Myanmar to eliminate terrorists.
And most importantly, India stood nose-to-nose against China at Doklam, Galwan and Pangong Tso, greatly irking the Dragon.
Vaccinating Bharat and the world in Covid
When the Covid pandemic broke out, India’s health sector was a carefully preserved relic with creaking infrastructure and pitiable capacity.
From there to developing its own vaccine and administering doses to more than 2.2 billion Indians (almost vaccinating the entire population twice over), Bharat transformed into a benign and fantastic beast. To top it, the Modi government sent vaccines and anti-Covid gear to more than 100 nations, leading the world in Covid diplomacy.
Indian economy closing in on third spot
When Narendra Modi took over from Manmohan Singh 10 years ago, India was the 10th largest economy in the world with a GDP of $1.9 trillion at current market prices. Today, it is at $4.1 trillion at the fifth place. It is galloping towards being the third largest economy behind the US and China by 2027.
These seven achievements stand out because each of them were inconceivable. They would sound like unrealistic bombast in the past. Turning them into reality is why Narendra Modi has already booked a shining place in history. What is staggering is that there may be many more on the way.
Abhijit Majumder is a senior journalist. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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