What is different in this year's Indian elections

A Whatsapp message from a friend got me thinking on why this year's Indian elections seem to be different. Most people I talk to, seem to think that this election is going to be decisive. It seems to be a once in a life time opportunity to move away from our "not so fondly remembered" ways of building a nation and moving towards genuine development. The following seems to be some highlights of this election that we haven't noticed in previous ones:

Discussion about what matters

The whole charade about who is more secular and who helps which community has been mostly replaced by a discussion on things that matter to the citizens - employment, infrastructure growth, inflation, economic growth, corruption, governance, etc.

Participative elections

We are seeing people from all walks of life participate in the elections - either through main stream parties or through new offshoots. This includes 

• Business professionals - Nandan Nilakeni, Balakrishnan, Meera Sanyal, etc
• Ex-Army men - Gen. V.K.Singh, Rajvardhan Rathore, Sanjeev Tripathi (from RAW), etc
• Ex-Police officers - Satyapal Singh plus a few more (can't remember their names)
• Sportsmen - Mohammed Kaif, Baichung Bhutia, etc

Clear differentiation between the Prime Ministerial candidates

While on one side, we have Narendra Modi as the candidate who has grown ground-up and has established himself as a doer, on the other side we have Rahul Gandhi who represents the dynastic Indian politics and is projected as more of a thinker. This gives the voters a clear choice - either go with the one who gets stuff done or with the one who provides a vision for a team to work towards.

Sense of national pride

When Narendra Modi asks why India has so many problems even after 60 years of Independence, it makes us think about where we have failed as a nation and how we can use this election to correct our past mistakes. This makes us ruminate on what we are proud of & what we are ashamed of and forces us to use this election as a decisive step towards change.

Social networks to start a discussion

While we have seen political parties use all channels to reach out to voters, but, for the first time, social forums - both online and offline (like "chai pe charcha") are being used to discuss ideas, problems and solutions.

Getting stuff done

Over years, I have seen my friends, class-mates and colleagues achieve many success & failures in their professional life. There have been many cases of people achieving professional successes that were not expected of them and the expected high-achievers failing pretty miserably. The common pattern that I have seen in most of the successes is that the person had the ability to "get stuff done". It is a very loose phrase, but, it encompasses what we typically try to explain as various qualities like "self-starter", "motivated", "takes up challenge", "tenacity", etc.

In many challenging times, we know exactly what needs to be done to overcome the challenge. We also mostly know what we can possibly achieve and where we would require help from others, but, somehow we fail to over-come the challenge. Reasons could be internal (sheer laziness, feeling over-whelmed, etc) or external (uncooperative environment, poor quality resources to help, etc). However, the successful person typically sticks to the plan, reaches out to the right people & seeks help where needed, puts in the hard work and somehow miraculously always completes it. This ability to commit oneself to a planned approach and methodically working on over-coming obstacles inevitably leads to success. Steve Jobs once explained this as the difference between a janitor and a VP. A janitor gives reasons & excuses as to why something cannot be done. A VP does not have that privilege - he is expected to get stuff done. 

Some have the ability to "get stuff done" in a soft way by convincing and cajoling. Such people are typically remembered as a saintly/grandfatherly person - ex. Ratan Tata, Warren Buffet, etc. Others do it by pushing and steam-rolling people, and are remembered as arrogant but high-achievers - ex. Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs, etc. 

I believe that as we progress in our career, it is this ability to "get stuff done" that distinguishes the high-flying eagles from the low-flying crows.