BOOK REVIEW
TITLE: MAKING OF NEW
INDIA-TRANSFORMATION UNDER THE MODI GOVERNMENT
EDITORS: BIBEK DEBROY/ANIRBAN
GANGULY/KISHORE DESAI
PUBLISHER: WISDOM TREE - IN
ASSOCIATION WITH DR. SHYAMA PRASAD MOOKERJEE RESEARCH FOUNDATION
PRICE: Rs. 995/-
The Transformation Underway
It would
have felt better if one was reviewing this book in the aftermath of a triumph
at the recently held assembly elections. But alas, it was not to be, at least
for the ruling dispensation, that managed to lose all three states in the “Hindi
Heartland” in a straight contest with the Congress.
This impressive book is the best
effort yet by the intellectual engines of the Modi government and its
sympathisers to articulate its achievements and challenges. It has been anchored and edited by the BJP
think-tank Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation (SPMRF), through its
Director Dr. Anirban Ganguly, and Niti Aayog using the services of Dr. Bibek
Debroy, Chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, and his OSD
Kishore Desai.
Its given
importance is underlined by the fact that it was launched by presenting the
first copy from the hands of the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to the
President of India Ram Nath Kovind on the 27th of November 2018 at a
formal occasion at Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Unveiled
before an audience of some of the 56 individual contributors, Union Ministers,
Members of Parliament, and a select few invited guests.
The nearly
600 page hardbound book has come at the four and a half year mark of the Modi
government. While its tone is self-congratulatory, the stark realities of the
angry rural and urban voters, once ardent fans of Narendra Modi, not being
impressed by the apparent non-delivery of “Acche Din” hangs
like a shadow over the exercise.
The Finance
Minister made the point in his introductory address, that nearly 80% of the
country’s revenue was now flowing to the states, in an unstated but exemplary
push towards greater federalism and empowerment of the states.
Presumably
this will make it easier for the newly won Congress states of Rajasthan, Madhya
Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and the earlier win in Karnataka to waive off small farmer
loans as promised. But, this, as we know, is easier said than done.
Notwithstanding
the fact that a large number of the states now have BJP governments, even as
the bulk of the Opposition derives its salience from one or the other of the
remaining ones, there is a deep-seated problem of fiscal extravagance in the
states of the Indian Union.
Sajid Chinoy
of Morgan Stanley, one of the able contributors to this book, makes the telling
point that the states were responsible for an ever widening fiscal deficit,
which, in turn, was impacting the excellent fiscal management of the centre. It
was driving up overall borrowing costs and making the private sector and
foreign investors wary. This excess of borrow and spend, needs to be better
managed. Of course, a few months before the general elections, this is
unpopular advice.
Having said
this, the Modi government has succeeded in putting the country on a sound
economic footing with robust growth trajectories. This, after coming to power
in May 2014, with a very strong political mandate, but a correspondingly weak
economy with a huge bad debt problem. India’s economy was dubbed, at the time,
as being part of the “fragile five” emerging market economies by international observers.
But poised
as it is politically, with a strong and credible challenge after the 5 state “semi-finals”,
the BJP and the NDA must perforce look at greater populism in its final budget
presentation on 1st February 2019. This may not be good news for the
economy, but survival is likely to come first.
So is this book
already out-of-date? Is it looking in the rear-view mirror or the road ahead.
There has been disappointment on the creation of jobs, rural distress, anger at
the ignoring of long pending Hindutva issues, lack of effective action against
the corrupt and so on. It is also true that no BJP government, or
for that matter, any government, other than one led by Congress has ever
enjoyed two consecutive terms.
To change this “default position”, as Rahul
Gandhi put it, is going to take some doing.
It is
interesting how there is an immense defensiveness that permeates essay after
essay in this book, as the writers first state and then argue against various
Opposition accusations.
This even though
it was written when there were no threatening clouds in the sky.
However, the “revival of nationalism”
as Professor Makarand Paranjape put it, is definitely an endeavour of this Modi
government.
Another,
widely acknowledged plank of a “corruption free government,” at least at the
top, has many takers.Open Magazine Editor Prassannarajan praises the mass
connect of using Mann Ki Baat on a
retro medium like the radio.Rajiv Lall extols the massive gains made by the
wide implementation of the Aadhar Cards as identity authenticators. The
Bankruptcy Act is lauded by famed economist Arvind Virmani. Somdutt Singh
argues the government’s thrust towards “skill development” will, in time, bring
on the jobs. Sadly, this is probably too slow for the voters.
There is an
implied criticism in the way “employment is measured” in the article by TCA Anant and the one after it
by Pulak Ghosh and Somya Kanti Ghosh that speaks of gathering “payroll data”
from the informal sector.The government’s controversial targeting of “black
money” and its achievements of better tax compliance is written about by Mukesh
Butani. The tackling of “benami transactions” in real estate and the
promulgation of RERA is the subject of Suparna Jain’s article.The visionary “Sagarmala”
project seeks to implement port based development as per Vishwapati Trivedi’s
essay.
Hardeep
Singh Puri writes on the “Smart Cities”. Kishore Desai, one of the editors of
this volume, points out the strides made in the electrical power sector. The
Ganga clean-up effort is written about by Harikishan Sharma. Education, Health,
Nutrition, the Swacch Bharat Mission, rural modernization has largely remained
a set of good intentions, but not if you read the chapters related to it.
Make
in India has not progressed beyond cellphones and cars but again, that is not how the
government sees it, drawing even the micro lending of the Mudra scheme into its
purview. Defence and national security gets quite a few chapters and perhaps deservedly so, because the Modi
government has shifted the inertia that
plagued this area. Foreign policy and India’s soft power gets good marks since
the Modi government took over. There has been a positive rebooting of India’s
relationship with multiple countries and several chapters dwell on this aspect.
All in all,
though parts of the book seem hagiographic, what is obvious is the enormous
scope of works undertaken by this
government in what is just four and a half years. It is, in the end, a very
good reference book to have in one’s library on Modi’s first term in office.
(1,119 words)
For: The Sunday Pioneer, Agenda,
BOOKS
December 18th, 2018
Gautam Mukherjee
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