Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology

With Vijay finalising the borders between all the states, north and south combined part of the reason why he came to the parliament was completed. However, there was still one more thing left, and that was pushing forward the one nation, one election policy.

In his past life, the talks for one nation, one election had been going on for a very long time, and until his death, it never came to fruition. In fact, Vijay is not a person who is unrealistic in his pursuit. He could understand why the elections in India were run the way they were. However, when compared with the benefits brought by one nation, one election, the advantages of an independent federal election system are dwarfed.

Higher cost efficiency, better administrative convenience, uninterrupted policy-making, increased voter turnout, reduced election fatigue, and encouraging politicians to focus on governance, among other things.

He always believed there is no best system, but only the system that works best for us. For the Bharatiya Empire and India, one nation, one election is the way to go for one simple fact: it saves a huge amount of resources and reduces the possibility of foreign interference by a large margin. Vijay knows that the Bharatiya Empire is not going to be the India of his previous life. The whole world will be looking forward to interfering with the Bharatiya Empire's elections to make the results more advantageous to them. Vijay wants to avoid this as much as possible by concentrating the election time on a certain period throughout the nation.

It was the same way that the US did it. If it was any different, it would be a nightmare to defend against foreign interference. In his last life, allegations were made against China for interfering in Tamil Nadu elections, America for interfering in the Northeast, Pakistan for interfering with Punjab, and other states, which had not come out yet.

Thinking about the election conducted throughout the empire, he realised something. "Vinod, do you think the logistics can handle the strain of the elections ?" He was confident that it was possible, but it was still good to get a confirmation.

Fortunately, Vinod did not disappoint him. "It should be no problem, Your Majesty. His Excellency Kishore Balabadra conducts examinations for schools and colleges throughout the empire in all major cities and towns at the same time. That is over 100,000-plus locations. Although for simultaneous elections throughout the empire, the locations would reach 200,000 or more, I believe ENEC has the foundation to conduct it without any problem."

Vijay nodded and finally passed the one nation, one election policy.

Vinod solemnly collected the document from Vijay and stored it in the Empire Archives, while Vijay kept a copy for himself to be stored in his family archives.

There was no need for the policy to be brought in front of the parliament for the ministers to pass it. Policies related to elections could be fully decided by the Emperor of the nation, as it is the right of the Emperor provided by the constitution.

"It's settled. From now on the Bharatiya Empire will have a single election for selecting both the prime minister and the chief minister."

" The prime minister will be selected from one of the 22 chief ministers of the Empire voted by the people, and the chief minister will similarly be selected from among the district administrators of the state."

Vijay made the election in such a way because he had no confidence that politicians could run countries. This was a proven fact in any country in the world, be it America, Russia, China, India, etc.

A country can only be run by managers, kings, and dictators. America is run by the managerial class, Russia and China are run by dictators and kings. As for India, sadly, it is mostly run by politicians, with only Prime Minister Modi looking at it as a big business from a manager's perspective.

To become an excellent politician, certain skills are required: they should have excellent communication and manipulation skills. They should be very clever and have knowledge of human psychology. They should at least have Oscar-level acting skills. They should be shameless, ruthless, and ambitious. Most importantly, they should know how to lie and how to push the blame when their lies are exposed.

The politicians are like the executives in a company who do not know the workings of the company but just give orders. The sad reality is that the people who give orders are more than the people who properly follow them, and in the end, if something goes wrong, it is the people who follow the orders that get replaced. It is like there being 10 captains for a ship with 50 people rowing it, and in the end, if something goes wrong, it is the rowers that get replaced.

Vijay chuckled, lamenting the sad reality of his last life.

For people who have spent their whole lives mastering this unique combination of skills just to be career politicians, how can they know how to manage a country or even a state?

Vijay firmly believes that any region should not be run by a politician but by a manager. So, for the elections in the Bharatiya Empire, if you want to become a chief minister or a prime minister, you should have experience as an administrator in a village, a town, a city, and a district. Only with these experiences are they eligible to compete for the position of chief minister. These people compete with others of the same calibre, and then they are voted for by the people.

It is the same for the prime minister. The chief ministers of various states can participate to become the prime minister, and for the people to vote, how well the state performed in the last five years becomes one of the biggest deciding factors.

Ironically, the Republic of India in Vijay's past life had been through 15 prime ministers, and out of those, only 6 were chief ministers of a state. What's even more demoralising is that out of the six people who had been chief ministers, only two served as prime ministers for more than two years, and those were P.V. Narasimha Rao and Narendra Modi, both considered among the best prime ministers of India.

The rest of the people, be it Manmohan Singh, LK Advani, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Rajiv Gandhi, Indira Gandhi, or even the so-called founding father Jawaharlal Nehru, never were in charge of a state in their lives.

If a prime minister is so disconnected from the populace, how can they be a good prime minister?

Vijay firmly decided such a thing would never occur under his rule. "Never!"

"Want to be a prime minister? Sure. Show the people your ability, prove that you are capable, and then you are eligible to be judged by the people. Otherwise, you are not even worthy of the people's judgment."

This policy, however, did indeed create a loophole since all the present cabinet ministers were directly selected by Vijay. However, this was a special case when the cabinet was formed. Now, if the people decide to elect someone else other than Vinod as the prime minister, Vijay wholeheartedly supports it.

In fact, he does not mind if Vinod actually steps down from the prime minister and serves as the chief minister of some state for a term. However, Vijay is confident that Vinod will win. He has led the government through the war against the Mughal Empire, the war against the Ottoman Empire, the war against the Dutch, the war against some of the naval powers in the West, and finally, he had managed to show growth and prosperity of the empire that the people had never seen.

For all the prosperity of the empire, Vijay gets most of the credit—sure, that is true. However, being connected with each other, the government naturally receives some of the goodwill directed towards Vijay. This is one of the outcomes of the government being Vijay's toolman. Even though the tool gets all the blame if something goes wrong and Vijay gets all the praise, both are linked in such a way that Vijay would still get blamed and the government will still get praised.

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Vijay quickly left the parliament and set off to the Raya machinery research wing.

Balachandra had been waiting for Vijay to arrive the whole day. He was informed that His Majesty would come today, but unfortunately, he had waited the whole day and His Majesty had still not come.

"His Majesty is here!!" Suddenly a shout was hurt

Although Vijay was a little late because he was caught up with governance affairs, he still arrived at the research wing around 4 PM.

Balachandra's face immediately lit up. "Welcome, Your Majesty. Please come in."

"Balachandra, let's see the prototype." Vijay wasn't in the mood to socialize. He had to travel to a military base right after to meet up with Hey Ram and Naveen Bhatt.

Balachandra, Looking at the sky that was dimming visibly to the naked eye, could understand Vijay's worry. 'Maybe His Majesty still has urgent matters to handle.'

"Most certainly, Your Majesty. I have already had the engineers prep the prototype this morning. Within a few minutes, it should be up and running."

Moments later, Vijay arrived in a laboratory that looked more like a factory floor, but he did not complain because, looking at the large egg-shaped machine in the middle of the laboratory, he could not hide his smile.

This was it; this was the Bessemer Converter from his last life.

"Have you named it?" Vijay looked at Balachandra with a smile.

To Be Continued...