By Raj Chengappa Editor-in-Chief

Negligence is the rust of our souls that corrodes through all her best resolves, Owen Felltham, the English writer, perceptively observed. For the UPA Government, it was a combination of negligence and stasis that saw the growth story of India corrode and crumble in 2013. An economy that had averaged 8 per cent growth plunged to below 5 per cent, the lowest in a decade. Inflation ripped a hole in our pockets so wide that even the very bright Raghuram Rajan, who was asked to head the Reserve Bank of India, couldn’t sew it up in a hurry. As the world gave

India the thumbs down, the falling value of the rupee reflected the sentiment.

An invisible Prime Minister, a government on a slippery slope, a party waiting for its heir apparent to jaago — rarely has a ruling dispensation experienced such a steep fall in credibility in so short a time. To paraphrase Shakespeare: “O, what a fall was there, my countrymen! Then I, you and all of us fell down.” The UPA was twice crowned by us to lead our nation to prosperity. Yet as night closed in on 2013, the hopes of a billion people lay torpedoed at the bottom of the sea to rust and rot along with Indian Navy’s ill-fated Sindhurakshak submarine.

Meanwhile, death and disaster struck the country and the world with ferocious regularity. Nature reserved its wrath for Uttarakhand in June. In the land of the gods, even idols and temples were not spared as the death toll crossed 5,000. In November, a monster typhoon in the Philippines consumed more than 4,500 people in its murderous wake.

The year also saw relations with our immediate neighbours take a downturn and tensions mount. Nawaz Sharif made a historic comeback in June as Prime Minister of Pakistan and promised to take relations with India forward. But soon went into reverse gear. The 2003 Ceasefire Agreement on the Line of Control was frequently breached by Pakistan and the two armies exchanged fire for the first time in a decade leading to loss of lives.

An invisible Prime Minister, a government on a slippery slope, a party waiting for its heir apparent to jaago — rarely has a ruling dispensation experienced such a steep fall in credibility in such a short time. As night closed in on 2013, the hopes of a billion people lay torpedoed at the bottom of the sea to rust and rot, along with Indian Navy’s ill-fated Sindhurakshak submarine.

China’s new leadership upped the ante with frequent border intrusions in Ladakh. When India stared it in the eye, it pushed for a comprehensive border defence agreement to cool temperatures down. In the south, Sri Lanka gnashed its teeth when the Indian Prime Minister, under pressure from parties in Tamil Nadu, refused to attend the CHOGM summit in Colombo. Bangladesh remained in turmoil as did Nepal — neither of these developments portend well for India.

It was not just India that was rusting. The world’s most powerful leader, Barack Obama seemed to have caught the same bug. For within months of him being sworn in as US President for the second time, his popularity ratings dipped as his administration bungled the launch of his signature health programme Obamacare. A debilitating stand-off with Republican lawmakers saw the US government shut down for two weeks in October pushing it again to the brink of the fiscal cliff.

In our personal lives, 2013 saw a worrying erosion of our moral and ethical fabric. A celebrated editor was accused of sexually assaulting a women as young as his daughter. A retired Supreme Court Judge was charged with making unwelcome sexual advances at an intern who was young enough to be his granddaughter. In our lawmaking, too, we seemed to have regressed with the nation’s highest court upholding an archaic code that penalised homosexuality as a crime.

There were other events in the year gone by that touched our lives and made our hearts beat as one. India’s cricket icon and arguably the game’s greatest player bid adieu, leaving a nation in mourning. In his final innings in the Mumbai Test, Sachin may not have lived up to the sobriquet of ‘Tondulkar’ but showed flashes of his genius that had seen crowds the world over queue up to watch him.

As 2013 flickered to a close, the people of India banded together to create a better world for the nation in the New Year. Fed up with vile politicians and lack of governance, the aam aadmi voted its own party to power in Delhi. A new middle-class hero was born: Arvind Kejriwal.

Voters also rewarded those like Shivraj Singh Chouhan of Madhya Pradesh and Raman Singh of Chhattisgarh who governed their states well and dumped Ashok Gehlot of Rajasthan for non-delivery. The BJP smartly cashed in on the anti-Congress wave building across the country by designating Narendra Modi as its prime-ministerial candidate and the move seems to be paying off. Rahul Gandhi, shaken and stirred, promised change in the Grand Old Party.

So as we enter 2014, there is hope that the accumulated rust could be scraped off and the nation painted afresh. Here’s wishing us a Happy New Year!

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