Modi's 2nd Anniversary Blues

Modi’s 2^nd Anniversary Blues

By now the government should have been firmly in the saddle. It’s not as if no progress has been made. Some second rung laws have indeed been passed. And a host of incremental administrative steps have been taken to tone up the functioning of the bureaucracy.

But no, the NDA government, absolute majority notwithstanding, is far from settled. Why?

Probably inexperience, with governance at the centre, even without a decision making diarchy crippling it, as it had the UPA.

The lack of majority in the Rajya Sabha has effectively stymied this government’s legislative agenda in the face of  a hostile opposition.

Despite this, highlights of the Modi administration successes are not sufficiently well amplified. These include passage of the Aadhar Bill which will greatly help the accurate rendering of subsidies at a minimum; the Real Estate Bill which will, in time, bring considerable relief to new home buyers; and most recently, the Bankruptcy Code, that will assist lenders and creditors take over assets before it is too late.

Then there is the marked rise in FDI over that of the previous administration. The steady increase in the country’s foreign exchange reserves to all-time highs, despite remittances from the Gulf coming under pressure, due to the  sharp downturn in oil prices. There are the increased successes in the power, road and railways sectors under three able ministers, even though a recent poll on two years of this administration, has 21 out of the 36 central ministers getting poor ratings. The finance ministry may have pulled off no big bang reforms, but has doggedly adhered to fiscal discipline in the face of temptation to ease up and promote growth instead.

The elimination of high level corruption in the government is a great achievement that is being callously overlooked, given that the entire system had been vitiated recently during UPA rule! But no, there is no dynamic growth in its place either.

The sanctioning of OROP, stuck in the works for 40 years, and the passing of the 7^th Pay Commission, will both put millions of rupees in the hands of serving and retired defence personnel and bureaucrats, resulting in a mini consumer boom. This may add a percentage point to GDP in 2017.

The very real gains from Modi’s  personal diplomacy and that of minister Sushma Swaraj in the MEA, particularly in the area of cooperation with regard to terrorism intelligence sharing, needs to be more robustly acknowledged. As also the huge pledges of investment against the government’s Make in India and other programmes in the areas of defence, the railways, and electronics in particular. Japan, China and the US, are beginning to put their money down already.

But apart from a hesitation and timidity of demeanour in government, at wide variance with Modi on the stump, resulting in considerable mockery, there are real failures too.

The GST and Land Reform amendment bills being still stuck is frustrating.  The judiciary’s rejection of the parliamentary law to have a say in the appointment of judges is a slap in the face that has gone unchallenged. 

Our judiciary claims to be over-burdened, and under-staffed, and yet, handles ‘dockets’ of cases per judge at a rate less than  one third of that in the US, and this with crores of pending cases clogging the judicial system.

However, if there is one key indictment to be made, it is in the area of economic revival, which is still proving elusive, despite low oil prices and  relatively low inflation. Unless there is a substantive change of gear, the remaining three years of this administration are bound to similarly disappoint.

The RBI has taken a conservative line when it comes to lowering interest rates, and the government, including the finance ministry, has been unable to induce substantial growth in business and industry, or indeed in the badly needed jobs sector.

Exports are on a deep downward trajectory, but apart from the fact that India exports nothing strategic in nature, part of the problem is the weakness of the importing economies at present.

This is affecting software exports, let alone items like garments and polished diamonds.

Even though the statistics say we have a GDP  of 7.5%  or so, up from under 5% before the coming of this government, something is wrong. The government nevertheless touts it as the strongest growth rate of any large economy in the world. Still, critics consider these figures suspect, and credit the new basis of calculation for the seeming bump up in GDP. Otherwise, it is no better than about 5.5% p.a. and considerably below the near double-digits necessary to alleviate poverty.

 The stock markets, euphoric with high expectations in 2013 and 2014, have slumped into despondency because of belied hopes. And, to be fair, the end of quantitative easing in the US and even the first uptick in interest rates there. The rupee, though stable for the moment, is expected to slide into the seventies to the US dollar before long.

The construction sector, contributing more in percentage terms than agriculture does to GDP, is in trouble too, with millions of high-priced but unsold units around the country .

Two years of consecutive drought, with a number of devastating floods in some parts, has put the entire swathe of rural India in distress. This year, the rains are expected to be normal, and this will revive both the water situation and rural income/growth.

On the public relations and communications front, prime minister Modi remains head and shoulders more popular than any other politician in the NDA and the country, and gets high marks for his personal efforts too.

But overall, this government seems embattled, with the experienced opposition Congress blocking its moves, despite it being riddled with a legacy of corruption, far-left posturing, and anti-national activity charges.

A Congress, decimated, reduced to a shadow of its former self electorally,  is still being able to put considerable pressure on prime minister Narendra Modi personally, let alone his council of ministers.

The Congress is also able to cast all of the NDA in a relentlessly negative light, via the media, including the party, the government, and its associates such as the RSS/AVBP et al.

In the popular perception, Congress has usurped the position of arbiter of what is right and wrong, national, anti-national, constitutional, tolerance, intolerance. It appears to decide what is appropriate or otherwise, even sitting in the opposition, and atop its own mountain of corruption allegations!

And it has successfully hung on to an army of media supporters, intellectuals, and establishment functionaries that have long benefitted from Congress patronage, and seem to believe that this term of the NDA is no more than a pause in the Congress’ uninterrupted run in power.

This is, after all, what has happened in the past to non-Congress governments; collapsing, sometimes even before completing a full term.

It is even being suggested that there are elements within the BJP, the so called ‘160 club’ that is upset with Modi’s runaway absolute majority, even without counting the NDA constituents. These BJP people spend time surreptitiously undermining Modi’s efforts. 

These 160 seats, they believe is ideal, so that with a weakened coalition formation, they too can wield considerable power and influence.

The periodic flare ups of dissidence, particularly from those who were  prominent in the Vajpayee government, but are seen to be either too old now and/or rigid LK Advani acolytes; gives credence to the thesis of the ‘160 club’.

Advani tried his best to prevent Modi, his protégé once, from being declared the PM candidate in 2013-14, and has expressed his points of difference with Modi’s style of functioning, if not the substance, in public, on more than one occasion.

Advani undermines Modi, by dismissing his achievements as the work of an impresario, long on hyperbole and short on actual substance, ‘a good event manager’. This is then gleefully repeated by Congress! All the angst from the old guard left out in the cold exposes an internal weakness in the BJP.

It may even put the confidentiality of ruling government strategy and tactics also under threat. After all, opposition elements are only too eager to mine and exploit whatever insights they can come by in advance.

It is also suggested that there are other BJP members in the cabinet who are politically soft on Congress, anticipating that softer NDA coalition government in 2019, if not having to contend with a winning anti-BJP coalition.   

This, if it is the internal impediment, has enough coming at it also from outside opposition. It is busy conducting a more or less unopposed propaganda war, accusing the government of following a communal agenda, saffronisation of the education system, following an inconsistent and soft policy towards Pakistan, not having very much to show for all Modi’s globe-trotting, trying to undemocratically grab some of the few remaining Congress led state governments, and so on.

What is most humiliating and dismaying for those who voted for  Narendra Modi in person, roaring like a lion on the campaign trail, is how meekly he and his government have taken the torrent of insult and propaganda, without effective rebuttal or retaliation.

This either suggests inexperience and incompetence, or an ineffective ameliorative strategy that has only resulted in sharpening the attack from the Congress.

Instead, what little success it has had by way of retaliation has come through the efforts of the maverick Subramanian Swamy, recently inducted into the Rajya Sabha, acting in his private capacity in the National Herald case.

Now the AgustaWestland matter has also been precipitated onto domestic politics afresh, because of a judicial verdict arrived at in Italy convicting the Italians involved. Will this too result in a prosecution of Sonia Gandhi? Time will tell.

Modi’s first two years have not dented his personal popularity despite the humiliating state assembly election losses in Delhi and Bihar. And this is the nucleus around which a more assertive prime minister, perhaps with a reshuffled cabinet, could yet pull off another five years, but based on the next three.

For: Swarajyamag

(1,671 words)

May 15^th, 2016

Gautam Mukherjee