We have only a few months to go before the next election and I thought we should consider this question: how much difference can any particular government make to India? We are ending a period when, for the first time in decades, there was a government with a majority.

It had popular opinion and goodwill on its side to a large extent when it came to power, it had the media on its side for the most part, and it was not lacking in ambition. Meaning that it started off with the announcement made through the campaign slogans that it stood for a new way of doing things and great change.

It also had a determined leader who could sidestep the minor obstacles that were in his way — avoiding the Rajya Sabha, for instance — towards producing that change. The question is: did all this produce any real change? This will likely produce two sorts of responses. The first will be from those who support this government and they will point to some things that appear to be different. For example not as much news about high-level corruption (this Rafale thing aside) in the last four-and-a-half years. This is probably the main thing that will be cited as having changed. Then they will point out that the intent is different in this leadership. This intent has produced interventions like demonetisation and the ‘surgical strike’ and Swachh Bharat campaign. Even if the result is not quite dramatic, the desire is there.

Such things will be offered by those who will believe that there was indeed some significant change that the current government has produced. The second set of people will be those who once supported the government but no longer do, plus those who never supported it for whatever reason.

The most important thing that will offend them might be the divisive nature of this government’s rhetoric. It has produced, it could be argued, new categories of violence in India. They may also point out to things like the economy. Even if we were to leave aside the problems of the market in the week we have left behind, overall things are not particularly good and even if we were to accept the rhetoric of the government, we would have to also accept that they are not particularly different over the previous decade.

We’re not looking at this through either of these two perspectives. The question is not about this individual and this government. The question is whether any government can make a difference over any other government to India. I do not think the answer to that is yes.

If we were to look at this neutrally (to the extent that this is possible in democratic politics, especially in a place where emotions run high) we would have to go down the list of things that need reworking to produce this better and shinier India.

Where can political forces make a difference? The first place is in the basic structures. This was done in India a long time ago and we have a Constitution already present and stable, because no political party or political force really opposes it. All of us swear by the Constitution, in the literal sense. This is quite remarkable and makes us one of the more fortunate among the poor nations. At least we do not fight over the basics, as they do in Pakistan and China and elsewhere.

The second stage where changes are possible could be in the systems and the laws. Again, all major political forces in India are agreed that we should have the sort of economic system we have operated for the last few decades. There is no opposition to it in substance across the political spectrum.

So far as the specific laws go, we already have a fairly liberal set of regulations which are tweaked by successive governments rather than torn down and then rebuilt from scratch. The Prime Minister has himself pointed out, and I think quite rightly, that no ‘game-changer’ type laws have been proposed by anyone to him. What we have seems to be good enough.

Anything that can be pointed out as needing change — for instance that the government should not be owning banks or insurance companies or running airlines — is banal. No party, including this one in power now, has made any strong effort to end this or to propagate a different course. It is merely tolerated. Everyone understands that this is going to erode through a gradual process, and it likely will.

Then the third stage would be what we would call governance: the ability to efficiently make the system move in the way that it was designed.

I will leave it to readers to look around them and ask if anything really changes for you in that sense. My answer is that it doesn’t. Everyday life is the same, whoever is in power, with however big a majority. Going to 2019, it is something for us to consider: this is what we have, and this is how it is going to be.