Vijay Kumar Gaba: Four years of Modi rule

"God forbid that the day should ever come when to be true to my constituents is to be hostile to the Union."

—Jefferson Davis (American, 2909-1889)

Word for the day

Atavism (n)

Reversion to an earlier type; throwback.

Malice towards none

While most business CEOs are persistently warning about the unemployability of Indian graduates, our HRD Minister is steadfastly busy handling homework of toddlers.

First random thought this morning

Last Friday, a journey across Yamuna Bridge in East Delhi was a traumatic experience. The stink emanating from the river down below was totally unbearable. This stink is a brutal reminder of the socio-political degeneration of our society.

Incidentally, the bridge referred to here is part of the Delhi leg of the much acclaimed Delhi Merrut expressway, that was inaugurated with much fanfare last week. There is a world famous temple (Akshardham) right on the bank of the river.

Wish our PM travels in an open carriage on this bridge and think about the plight of the Mother Yamuna.

Four years of Modi rule - concluding part

In this concluding part, I would highlight some failures of omission, which in my personal view may cost dear to socio-economic conditions of our country; and electoral prospects of BJP as well.

After many reviews and much deliberations, I have come to a conclusion that a meaningful assessment of any democratically elected government with a mandate to govern for a fixed term (5yr in our case), could only be made in terms of the opportunity available at the time of its assuming power.

Any assessment based on the comparison with previous regimes, or even with the political agenda (which is mostly rhetorical) presented during elections, would be mostly meaningless in a dynamically evolving environment.

In this light, in my view, some major opportunities available to the incumbent the government since 2014 could be listed as follows:

(a) The youth of the country had voted for BJP and its allies, rising above the lines of caste and religion, for an agenda of inclusive economic development. The youth, across rural and urban landscapes was totally animated and enthusiastically willing to participate in the task of nation building. There was a massive anti-corruption sentiment.

In post independence era, the only parallel of this phenomenon could be drawn with the JP movement of 1970s. The major difference however was that at that time the economy of the country was in dismal conditions and socialism was the driving political ideology.

This time, however, the economy was in good shape, and consumerism was the driving ideology. As PM Modi himself very succinctly outlined the strengths of Indian economy in his earlier speeches - Demography, Demand and Democracy.

The government thus had the opportunity to mobilize the youth in nation building; rise above parochialism and stimulate some structural social reforms and corrections and thus lay foundation for a social renaissance.

(b) The Chidambaram and Rajan duo had taken many painful decisions since 2013 and brought the economy back from the brinks of disaster. Most macro parameters (Current Account and Fiscal Deficit, Inflation, Forex reserves; external vulnerabilities, etc.) had begun to improve. Fall in global oil prices was becoming a massive support. Poor monsoon during 2014-15 did threaten some bit, but actual damage was marginal. The global economy was also recovering, thus improving external demand environment. The government thus had the opportunity to push exports harder and also implement some tough structural reforms.

(c) Supreme Court and NGT had been actively pronouncing many policy directives, eg., for allotment of natural resources and sustainability, that minimized the chances of political and workers' union dissent and opposition to key economic reforms.

This provided the government with an opportunity to implement key socio-economic reforms in relation to the ownership of natural resources, decentralization of economic power and making growth sustainable, without much political opposition.

(d) We way of a decisive mandate to PM Modi, in a semi presidential type general election in 2014. the people of India has afforded him an opportunity to take radical decisions to deliver on the constitutional promise of a dignified life (including death) for every citizen of the country. In November 2016 when PM suddenly took the decision to demonetize the high value currency notes, a large majority of people reaffirmed their commitment to the 2014 mandate.

(e) A decade of high growth, had made Indian consumers darling of the world. Most global economies were looking at India for expanding their markets. For this many of them appeared willing to grant a variety of economic and political concessions. The full pockets of Indian middle class consumers afforded a great opportunity to the incumbent government to strengthen India' geo-political, commercial and political standing in the world.

There were many more opportunities. But if I evaluate how the incumbent government has exploited these opportunity, I do not get much promising result.

1. The government has mostly failed the youth of the country.

Most business leaders, both from manufacturing and service industries, have frequently expressed grave concerns about the employability of the engineering and management graduates.

A host of government and private studies have shown that the level of average students at middle school level in most populous states like UP and Bihar is unacceptable. In many cases class 6 students failed to answer 2nd standard questions.

The government has failed miserably in formulating a nation youth policy or even an integrated education policy.

The achievement list of the government just includes, opening few new institutes of higher learning, and announcing some financial assistance schemes for select students and sportspersons. Something that has been happening ever since 1947.

Not being channelized properly, the vast reservoir of youth energy on which India is sitting presently, is already beginning to explode.

It is therefore extremely critical to evolve an integrated youth policy that include mission scale programs to educate and skill the youth, inculcate enterprise skills in them from early stages, enable them to engage in productive self employment, deal empathetically with their concerns, anguish, frustration and disillusionment.

It is a common belief that the famous Skill India program of PM Modi, is mostly a failure. My personal experience suggests that the common belief is certainly not way of the mark.

This failure in developing a strong education, skilling and training system aimed at equalizing the society is a one of the weakest link in Indian economy.

The poor standard of education and educators in a large majority of public educational institutes is not only perpetuating the socio-economic inequalities in the country, it is also proving to be a serious challenge to (a) economic growth in terms of shortage of skilled workforce; (b) fiscal consolidation by increasing the dependency ratio of people on the government; and (c) internal security by forcing youth to undertake unlawful and disruptive activities.

A large majority of Indian workers, artisans and laborers acquire their occupation skills and training on the job. Their exploitation aside, the skills they acquire are mostly of poor quality. By the time they realize or try to become independent of their masters, they are already casted in a rigid mold. They are usually their past prime learning age and have no option to chose a different occupation.

The fabled India story is quintessentially built on the premise of a strong middle class who will earn, consume, save, invest. With this state of populace, the dream of upgrading 700mn Indians from poverty to middle class will remain only that a dream.

The government has prima facie failed in assimilating that a uniform, good quality integrated education system is much higher priority than building airports, colleges and smart cities. Appointing almost uneducated graduates as teachers to win their votes is totally inadequate.

The youth today is disillusioned, disenchanted and demotivated.

2. There has been little in the name of structural economic reforms in past four years. Commitment to the subsidy rationalization and fiscal discipline raises some optimism, but most of it is subdued by populist and mostly dissipating measures like farmer loan waiver, demonetization, etc. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the Ujjawala scheme alone has the potential to undermine the entire subsidy rationalization effort of the government. (see here).

Besides, the wavering in adhering to market pricing of fuel shown during recent Karnataka elections was not quite inspiring.

3. Instead of taking cue from the Supreme Court and NGT, and pushing forward the agenda of transparency and sustainability, the government has often been seen confronting the Judiciary and undermining its concerns.

4. It is a common belief that the incumbent government has been totally market driven in its governance and policy approach, rather than people driven. It has mostly failed in ensuring a dignified life (and death) for the citizens of India, as envisioned in the Constitution. Bogged down by frivolous issues like eating habits of people, and under influence of distorted interpretation our great legacy, a totally avoidable environment of mistrust, anxiety and uncertainty has been created.

Court directed efforts for ensuring dignity and rights of Muslim married women have been mostly reduced to political gimmickry.

Young students of class 10 have been stressed to commit suicide, a phenomenon earlier seen in students aspiring for professional degrees.

5. The interest of foreign government and businesses in Indian market and entrepreneurial capabilities has been trivialized into personal charisma of PM Modi.

Though I do not have any data to support my contention, by intuitively I feel, that this undue political interference might have actually resulted in diminishing the foreign interest in Indian business (and markets) and also impacted the exporters of goods and service adversely.

The unprecedented rise in Indian rich migrating abroad may not entirely be due to tighter black money surveillance. Some of it may also be due to businessmen and entrepreneurs not being very optimistic about Indian markets in near to midterm.

To conclude, I would rate the performance of the incumbent government as follows:

(1) Exploiting the opportunities available - UGLY

(2) Continuity of policy and programs - GOOD

(3) Innovation and originality - BAD

(4) In comparison to UPA government - GOOD

(5) Delivery on promises - UGLY

(6) Execution of key projects, policy initiatives and programs - GOOD

(7) Maintaining social harmony, promoting peace and cooperation - BAD

(8) Social reforms - BAD

(9) Economic reforms - BAD

(10) Foreign policy - GOOD

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