In his 1992 presidential campaign, Bill Clinton immortalised the line, “It’s the economy, stupid”. Does this work in Narendra Modi’s India?
In election after election, across democracies in the world, the line has been repeated. The transnational appeal of the idea was also understandable because James Carville, the famous political “consultant” who coined it for Clinton, also advised dozens of leaders across the world. A kind of globalised, American Prashant Kishor. And, whatever the language or idiom, the logic passed the test of time.
Or it did, until lately. For almost a quarter century, a leader who promised or delivered a better economy won, or was re-elected. In 2016, this was the promise that brought Donald Trump to power, as also Modi in 2014. But that seems to have changed worldwide now. Let’s look at India.
After Modi’s first two years, the economy has stalled, and then declined. The stall began with demonetisation in 2016-17. Lately, India has had at least 7 out of 8 quarters of growth decline. Negative growth is rightly blamed on the pandemic, but it isn’t as if this patient was in the pink of health before the virus struck. On almost every economic and even social indicator, India has been posting a decline. It shows in our crashing rankings on all key global indices.
Now, we know that Modi won power in 2014 on the promise of massive economic growth, jobs and development on the ‘Gujarat Model’. But barring, say, the first 24 months to some extent, he has never delivered on that promise.
If the concept of “It’s the economy, stupid” worked, he should not have swept the Uttar Pradesh elections of 2017. By that time, demonetisation had already deflated India’s economy; job losses, and trade, rural and farmer distress had set in. It didn’t bother anybody but his hapless opposition and marginalised editorialists like us.
By the summer of 2019, our economy had already been in a tailspin. Worse, joblessness was already reaching a high that would be alarming in a democracy. Some of the data was so embarrassing that the Modi government had to either hide it, rewrite it, or change the formula and produce friendlier data, as on GDP numbers. Every economic indicator had gone wrong except one: Inflation. And yet, Modi returned with a larger majority in that election.
It is still exactly a month before we will know what the voters decide in these five assembly elections. The numbers obviously won’t be what Amit Shah is counting after each phase in West Bengal. But whatever these are, one thing they won’t reflect is the state of India’s economy.
It will be the first year of negative — double-digit negative — growth in our independent history. And while this may be blamed on the pandemic, it destroyed so many lives, jobs and savings because it came on top of three lousy years. In normal politics, this would have made these elections a walkover for the opposition. They will be anything but that. Which will make us question that 1992 Clintonism.
Also read: Economic ideology is the new binary in Indian politics as Modi swerves Right & Rahul Left
So, what is it that works for Modi, if not the economy? Or, how does he keep winning in spite of the economy? The fact is, it isn’t an India-specific phenomenon. Donald Trump, whatever else was wrong with him, lost in spite of the economy being in a pretty good place. It helped him retain and increase his voters. But other considerations weighed on the minds of a larger number of voters. The issues of identity, colour and class, and the virus, for example. Biden’s promise wasn’t an economic boom.
At the other extreme is the Putin phenomenon. In fact, this week’s National Interest was sparked by this Ruchir Sharma column in the FT, where he talks about how Putin has not only made Russia sanctions-proof, but continues to keep winning despite insignificant economic growth. We record all the qualifications on Russia’s electoral process — ours still is much cleaner in spite of some vote-filled EVMs hitching a ride in a candidate’s car in Assam. Yet, there is no denying that he’s widely popular and will win a fairer election as well. How is he able to do this without growth?
Putin is riding the deep insecurities of a people scarred by much instability, political and economic, preceding his rise. For them, therefore, stability becomes the first priority. The economy can wait.
If we were to build on this, stability brings nationalistic self-esteem. Putin fought off many separatist or religiously inspired forces, insurgency and terrorism, “taught the upstart Ukrainians a lesson” by grabbing Crimea, stood up to America, and probably even played it in the Trump period. Under him, Russia is back to being a power that enough of the world still holds in awe.
How does it matter that its economy has shrunk relative to the rest? Even compared to the emerging markets. For comparison, it is just about 60 per cent of India’s at $1.7 trillion (in 2019), with no hope of catching up. But, if the nation is together, can punch above its economic weight in its neighbourhood and in the global balance of power, it is because of stability and leadership. The economy is about my self-interest. I can sacrifice it for some time.
Apply the same parallel to India. By 2014, India still had the scars of 2008 (26/11) and much terrorism that preceded and followed it, going right back to the early Vajpayee years. It was like two decades of humiliation with a much weaker neighbour hurting us often, at will. All India would do, from Vajpayee to Manmohan Singh, was to go complaining to America and the rest.
On top of it, we had a prime minister so weakened by his own party that he had been reduced to a caricature of that high office. Plus, the discourse across the board was all about corruption from the opposition, and inequality even by the ruling party. Between 2003 and 2009, India had built enormous pride and optimism with a booming economy. That optimism brought the UPA back to power. In the following years, it was fully reversed. It was an incredible election where the ruling party also campaigned complaining about inequality and poverty instead of its economic successes.
For the Modi proposition, if the promise of taking the ‘Gujarat Model’ nationwide was the engine, this widespread negativity provided a 200-knot tailwind. Through these seven years, he’s mostly failed to deliver on the first promise, the economy. But, on the second, national pride, standing up to terrorism from the neighbourhood, on restoring the majesty of the prime minister’s office, he scores 10 upon 10. May be even 11 upon 10. Remember, we are only talking about his voters.
Also read: Modi’s India loves global praise, but turns angry Vishwaguru at slightest criticism
The belated flurry of economic reform would suggest Modi has figured that his script is getting jaded and that he needs a new one. He will try for an economic recovery but still stick to what has worked for him so far: The three-pronged offering of massive, efficient welfarism for the poorest; hard, visible infrastructure-building; and harder, cast-in-Hindutva nationalism.
The engines of the economy, left to idle for long, take time gathering pace. It is likely that India will get a great year anyway on the back of a terrible one. Some equivalent of the stock markets’ dead cat bounce will come in. The larger, more widespread economic gains take time. They also, inevitably, increase inequality first. Usually, it’s some successor who will benefit from this. So, can’t count on it.
Modi gets this. The question is, do his challengers get it? Much of their attack is still over economic distress under Modi. Two large areas, identity (which includes religion and culture) and national pride, they’ve ceded to him altogether. Check out the Congress and Left parties’ flip-flop on Sabarimala to understand the point on identity. Or the manner of questioning over Uri, Balakot and Galwan. These underline their faltering on nationalism. Economic distress brings insecurity, but it isn’t a fraction of the visceral emotion a perceived threat to identity or national pride brings. This is why demagogues across the democratic world keep winning. The reason we’d prefer to say at this point: It isn’t the economy, genius.
Also read: No Bangladeshis, no Pakistan, no terrorism. Why Modi-Shah BJP has changed its poll pitch
Sounds @The Print has started censoring content much like their Islmo-leftist monopolistic brothers (Google, Face book, Twitter..) who are nothing but robbers, data thieves & freedom of speech killing scoundrels!!
Reality Check: Reading your incessant, vacuous rants and invective against The Print, I think you are sorely in need of a Sanity check !
@Kili Jolsiyar: Reading your incessant rants against splendid Hindus & BJP makes you eligible for pisslamic slave land Pakistan & Xinjiang!!
Shekhar Gupta is saying the obvious. 7 years have gone by, and India’s economy has gone down, ever since demonetisation. Modi promised vikas and ache din. It was a tomorrow that never came. Do we have to wait the full 10 years or another 70 years to see Modi is a failure and is not up to it ?
Even the dumbest bhakts know the economy is in the doldrums, but they will retort angrily that the only people complaining are the ones with black money to hide.
Shekhar Gupta then finds it inexplicable how Modi gets elected and why people believe him. Modi’s appeal is only to Hindus – not all, but a big enough majority to sustain him. The minorities – Sikhs, Muslims and Christians – have no illusions and they see reality without the baggage of showing pride that the Hindu is lumbered with.
I have stated that there is no mystery about Modi’s continuing support as of now – Hindus believe Modi is standing up for them, as if one needed this. Many Hindus believe the minorities were suppressing them ! As the French scholar of India, Christophe Jaffrelot, remarked, the majority community in India has developed a minority complex.
With these two items settled – the parlous state of the Indian economy, and the reason for Modi’s support – the only question remaining is ‘where next for India ?’ Is it possible there will be a course correction and Modi will focus only on economic recovery and not waste the party’s mandate on fanning social hatred ?
On this, I had an interesting discussion with a Muslim. On the distressing issue of attacks on minorities, I offered that it was not sustainable, it will have to tone down once people did not have the money. Once the economy is in a dire state, the silver lining for the minorities is that it will act as a natural brake on the focus on hate – so I thought. He replied ‘no, if the economy goes down further, our situation will get worse, because their frustrations will increase and the hate will have to increase to mask the failure’.
That was food for thought. Yes, I can see that. Worsening economy will not lead to course correction or create a flow of economic genius (no John Maynard Smith will rise from the Sangh !). Instead, Modi and Shah’s genius for polarisation and organising hate will burn with more intensity. In that field, they are endlessly inventive.
I wonder if anyone has thoughts on ‘India, where next – course correction or irrecoverable decline ?’
India is on the right track. It was on the wrong track earlier , with Nehru’s nonsense of secularism, socialism & non=alignment resulting in anemic growth and minority militancy. It was ridiculous that Muslims who walked off with 1/4 of land keep demanding more & more and giving nothing in return. They refuse to assimilate. What they and secularist Hindus, even more, need stick. India did course correction in 2014.
Harry: As is to be expected from the BJP IT Cell operative assigned to The Print, you spew your usual, fact free, jingoistic gibberish in response to a very thought-provoking comment from Mr Akash. Fact is Harry, you and your itchy-groined shaka intellectuals are like the proverbial frog in water that is slowly getting heated up – you don’t realise it before it is too late to escape.
On every indicator you can think of: economic, defence, corruption, inequality, healthcare, unity of the country, soft power, capital flight etc. etc. India has done terribly under the Gujarati Führer. Let us scrutinise a few indicators.
ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE: The WORST period of the Dr Manmohan Singh regime was better than the BEST period of the Modi regime, even before the COVID crisis. Indeed, on 11 out of 15 indicators that reflect the health of the Indian economy, MMS trounces the Führer easily. Ref: bit.ly/39O8N2U
The above statistic pertains to the formal sector of the economy. But as everyone but the Führer knew, 82% of Indians work in the informal sector of the economy. That was devastated by the idiotic policy called demonetisation. You see, your all-knowing Führer knew more economics than Dr Raghuram Rajan and Dr Urjit Patel and trashing their advice he ended up crashing the economy. The informal sector is the backbone of the Indian economy and it is yet to recover from that self-goal. Additionally, in the week preceding the declaration of demonetisation, I personally saw hordes of Gujarati bagmen shivering in the November cold of Switzerland. Incidentally I live in the border of France, Switzerland & Germany. So some important people were tipped off weren’t they such that the “Patel Paisa” was safe wasn’t it?
DEFENCE: Rafale procurement scandals, award of Rafale maintenance contract to Anil Ambani, a Gujarathi with zero experience in the aerospace industry. Additionally, Amit Shah’s provocative speech about recovering Aksai Chin provokes the Chinese and India loses territory in Golwan valley. And then the shooting down of the fighter plane and capture of the Indian pilot… India gave itself a bloody nose.
INEQUALITY: India ranks among the bottom 15 of Oxfam world inequality index. The top 10% of the Indian population holds 77% of the total national wealth. 73% of the wealth generated in 2017 went to the richest 1%, while 67 million Indians who comprise the poorest half of the population saw only a 1% increase in their wealth.
(ref: bit.ly/3rT2y3T)
HEALTHCARE: India’s health budget fourth lowest in world. Afghanistan and India set aside the same share for health in their budgets
(Ref: bit.ly/31REljV)
UNITY OF THE COUNTRY: With lynchings of Muslims, Dalits and violence towards the former 2 communities as well as Christians and tribals, India’s unity is under severe strain. Indeed, Naxalites control large swathes of the country.
SOFT POWER: Believe it or not, India amassed quite a large reservoir of soft power thanks to figures like Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru, Dr ManMohan Singh and even to an extent Ms Indira Gandhi. I work in international relations and I can for a fact tell you from own interactions with diplomats and politicians that India is losing its soft power edge over China and Pakistan. By becoming like China and Pakistan : authoritarian and playing with religious fundamentalism.
But as Mr Akash above writes, even the dumbest bhakth knows that the economy is in tatters – although there may be odd genius like yourself Harry – who refuses to read the writing on the wall. But as long as people like you can derive pleasure by thrashing a thirsty Muslim child who wanders into a temple to drink water, I guess it will take a bit more time for the extent of the rot to sink in.
You know that you are in a sinking ship Harry, but console yourself by saying that I am still sitting at the end of the ship that hasn’t sunk yet. The only question, as Mr Akash alludes to is: how many more pogroms will be inflicted on Muslims to keep the illusion that the Modi ship hasn’t sunk yet?
Your spectacularly pathetic and singularly jingoistic posts makes one feel that you truly want to believe the myth that you are living in the utopia that Führer Modi is creating for you and your Hindutva friends. As the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard wrote:
“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”
It is 94% of the TOTAL Indian labor force that works in the Informal sector in India.
Mr Raghuraman: Thanks for the response.
In fact, I have come across figures ranging from 80% to your 94%.
Here is what some sources say:
Observer Research Foundation: 81%
(ref: bit.ly/3dSvhB4)
International Labour Organisation (ILO): over 90%
(ref: bit.ly/3wJyZWa)
Economic Survey of India : 93%
(ref: bit.ly/3223AAe
NIITI AYOG: 85%
(bit.ly/3223AAe)
But rather than quibbling over the exact number – which may never be known – we can surely agree that whilst the formal sector is the visible part of the iceberg, the informal sector is the more massive, invisible hulk of the iceberg. Most Indians who worked in the informal sector were impoverished by Modi’s demonetisation and are yet to recover.
However, as Shekhar Gupta points out, that does not necessarily mean that they have ceased supporting Modi. Just as many poor, blue collar whites who were bound to be adversely affected by voting for Trump nonetheless voted for that charlatan, the Hindu vote usually goes to Modi. Clearly, Hindus don’t seem to care whether they will get their next meal or not as long as they can cause Muslims to suffer.
As Adolf Hitler once said:
“What luck for rulers that men do not think.”
I shall correct you only on one point : you called demonetisation an idiotic policy.
That implies it was an honest mistake, a miscalculation, the intention was noble, but it was poorly executed.
However, the reality is it was a cynical calculation to control the money supply for the UP election. It did not matter to them that the Indian economy and the daily wage earner will be shattered. Modi was able to pose as an incorruptible strongman, out to punish the rich black marketeers. Minorities were not taken in, but most Hindus were taken in by his spiel of fighting corruption. Modi made a dramatic announcement saying if all the black money was not weeded out in 58 days, we could hang him. We know 1 year later, 99.9% of the money came back. By that time, Modi had moved on to his next lie, and people forgot about the previous one, as they were mired in the next crisis – GST roll out.
Demonetisation was not a case of a good idea poorly executed. It was wickedness of the first degree. A person capable of killing 2000 Indians to win an election, will have no qualms about looting. He is an artful liar and he knows he can continue – as long as Hindus accept the lies.
In the comparison between MMS and Modi, here is a simple statistic.
I was at a dinner table, and people were grumbling about the petrol price. It is pinching. I remarked this is another Modian disaster. In 2011, petrol reached Rs 45/litre and the BJP shouted against MMS. International oil prices in 2011 were on average $111/barrel. Now we have oil at 63 USD/barrel but petrol in India is Rs. 95-100 / litre. They were puzzled and wanted to know why I saw Modi as a disaster. I mentioned 2002. One person looked at me and said ‘Oh, you are thinking of that time’. In other words, that was 19 years ago, what is the relevance ?
I explained the relevance is that the leopard does not change its spots. In 2002, Modi showed his character, and many endorsed it. Indians believed his lies about the Guajrat model, and voted for him out of communal enthusiasm, so now you have to accept all the baggage that comes with an uneducated demagogue
If India did course correction in 2014 for anaemia, is their evidence of vibrant growth since ? And has the majority’s militancy and mob rule helped growth ?
Please cite your evidence of galloping growth since 2014.
And is secularism replaced with something better ? Where has fascism been a success ?
Do we have to wait 10 or 70 years to know what is the result ?
PS and don’t reply back with Moplah rebellion.
Mr Akash: In addition to his fetish with the Mopla Rebellion, Harry, our resident BJP IT cell representative assigned to The Print has a new way of venting his anger when his intellectual impotence is laid bare – he will now ask you to take the Samjhauta Express !
Harry is a classic example of the bhakth of today – a Neanderthal whose hatred of Muslims is so intense that he will not balk at becoming the next Babu Bajrangi at the drop of a hat. He is proof the mass radicalisation of Indian society that Führer Modi and his saffron henchmen have accomplished.
But it must indeed take a phenomenal amount of stupidity or perhaps blind faith in Führer Modi to not see the writing on the wall with regard to India’s economic troubles. Capital flight is peaking; inequality has increased; crony capitalism has been institutionalised; once well-functioning industries such as the Leather industry are now in doldrums due to cow slaughter bans; FDI has tapered off as investor confidence in the Führer’s economic policies have vanished and so on. And I am talking of issues that had been flagged before the Covid crisis struck in early 2020. And yet, a reasonably educated chap like Harry will not accept the truth – as long as the Führer organises pogroms, he gets Harry’s vote.
As the American satirist H.LMencken (1880-1956) said:
“The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots”
“The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots”.
That thinking was in the Goebbels you quoted. Lying and convincing the masses is the secret to hold power. It is a breathtaking cynicism where one is knowingly wicked and is not ashamed.
At some stage, Modi will go. But I think his end will be unceremonious – maybe worse than Advani’s. His legacy will be forgotten as other demagogues like Shah and Yogi will jockey for position.