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Why Modi doesn’t feature in a list of India’s reformist prime ministers

Despite big ideas, Modi comes off poorly as a reformer, because his bureaucrats lack the motivation to push reforms and are beginning to enjoy unbridled power.

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Three questions: First, is Narendra Modi an economic reformer? Second, where would he rank in the list of India’s reformists: P.V. Narasimha Rao, Dr Manmohan Singh, Atal Bihari Vajpayee? And third, how successful is he in implementing his reformist ideas?

If the answer to the first question is yes, what does he have to show for as he begins his seventh year?

A lot has been announced and welcomed by those like us waiting for reforms to resume after a 10-year drought since UPA-2 began its slow suicide in 2010. Railways, agriculture, banking, manufacturing, labour laws, power sector, civil aviation, FDI in new sectors, PSUs, coal, mining, taxation — the list is impressive. But, as a Class 1 child would do in her arithmetic, draw a line under all these, and the answer will be pretty much zero.

Which brings us, sort of naturally, to the third question. Is Narendra Modi capable of implementing his ideas, especially the big, reformist ideas? You would have to be nuts, or a Naxal, urban or rural, if you said no. Think demonetisation and nationwide lockdown at four-hour notice from 8 pm. That’s decisive.

Why has he, then, been struggling so badly in converting his economic reform ideas into reality? It isn’t just coronavirus. The virus came three months back. India’s economy was in a steep fall for almost two years. There is indeed a factor of ‘the day after’ corona worsening our economic crisis. But there was a severe enough crisis even ‘the day before’. We can begin with his first big reform, the Land Acquisition Bill.


Also read:Don’t absolve Modi by saying he doesn’t have the right team to bring in economic reforms


Granted, you can blame that on politics or Rahul Gandhi. But here is a quick listing from the top of my mind, and with the help of ThePrint’s Senior Associate Editor for economy, Remya Nair. You can add more as we go along. There was a committee to overhaul direct taxes under then-CBDT member Akhilesh Ranjan, which submitted its report in 2019. It’s still not in public, and the file has been sent into, what late George Fernandes had said about India’s defence purchases, “bureaucratic orbit”, circling idly with no destination.

After demonetisation, the prime minister announced his Garib Kalyan Yojana, which was a kind of tax amnesty scheme, hoping to collect big bucks like P. Chidambaram’s VDIS (Voluntary Disclosure of Income Scheme) of 1997. Zilch came. The tax rate was so confiscatory and punitive, it was no amnesty. Rules drafted were so complex, that you’d be high on something illegal to make a disclosure under these.

There is a pattern to the Modi government’s economic decisions: The follow-up, the design of the plan, implementation takes too long. And by the time it is done, it is such a jumble of bureaucratese that it looks more like an overcooked spaghetti bowl. What is the status of the PSU bank reform, for example? Where is the promised bank holding company? Longer tenure for PSU bank chiefs, accountability of their boards? All good ideas idling in George Fernandes’s deadly orbit.

Power sector reform is a disaster twice over. A third attempt has been announced now. Let’s watch.

The same for coal. So many times has the coal and mining reform, and private sale, been announced in six years, that even Google is confused and searching for clarity. It has been announced yet again, in the latest, pandemic-package.

The inability of the Modi government to sell even one PSU in six years, except to itself in the manner of a Milo Minderbinder in Catch-22, does zero justice to a prime minister with such enormous power. Not even Air India. This year, there is an obvious challenge. But in his first tenure, his teams came up with a sale document so complicated, it might have needed the intellect of a Lord Shiva to unravel it. And then, the courage and strength of a Lord Hanuman to buy the company, and risk spending your life with CBI, CBDT, CVC and the courts, and jail. These four dreaded ‘Cs’ have only become stronger, rather than being reformed in these six years.


Also read: PM, CM, DM: India’s 3 big power centres have been exposed by one disaster


The answer to our first two questions, therefore, lies in the third. Modi comes off poorly, and doesn’t feature anywhere in the rankings of our reformist leaders yet, because his implementation of his own ideas has been poor. So, A+ for ideas, C- for implementation, and maybe B- on the rankings, essentially because of the bankruptcy code, some PSU bank mergers and GST.

Take your mind back to 1991. The political direction for reforms came from Rao’s minority government, but it had a stellar team of civil servants. And this continued until about 2009, after which Congress’s internal politics killed even the thought of reform. List the sherpas who hauled the reform up.

There were in three categories: Bureaucrat-economists (N.K. Singh, Y.V. Reddy, D. Subbarao, K.P. Geethakrishnan, all IAS), economist-bureaucrats (Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Bimal Jalan, Vijay Kelkar, Rakesh Mohan), and some pucca bureaucrat-bureaucrats who knew how to get things done. Think about A.N. Verma (principal secretary in Rao’s PMO), Naresh Chandra, who held every job or headed every reform committee that mattered (including defence) for those two decades, and Abid Hussain. And tough truth to tell, a memo written under their watch would never need one amendment for clarity or contradiction, forget multiple ones, as is now the norm in the lockdown period.

There are three ways in which they were different. One, the career bureaucrats among them had their moment under the ‘mai-baapsarkar sun. When the state had enormous power. Having enjoyed it, they were happy to give it up now. Which is essentially what reform, or the spirit of ‘less government, more governance’, is.

Two, having lived most of their lives through pre-reform years, they had experienced the shortages and miseries that the licence-quota raj brought. Listen to Montek and N.K. Singh recount their stories of the humiliation when a hotel in New York wouldn’t check them in, full secretaries, because Indian credit cards were not valid overseas. Or realising at a big multilateral negotiation in a Geneva hotel, that you could tell whether an Indian had been in a lift by sniffing petrol. Because India still did not allow the import of modern dry-cleaning equipment. A memory bank of such experiences brought the impetus for reform.

And third, combining this IAS group with lifelong economist-bureaucrats brought in intellectual weight. Finally, each one of these was allowed a long tenure in economic ministries. The career of N.K. Singh from joint secretary (commerce) onwards (even now he heads the 15th Finance Commission) is an example. Today, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das is the only durable economic bureaucrat.

The current civil service leadership consists mostly of secretaries of the 1985-87 batches. They are children of reform, or let us say, officers of the ‘colour TV era’ (beginning 1982). They don’t know what we were denied pre-reform, but also never knew the powers their predecessors gave away. They don’t have to be on a three-year waitlist for a Premier Padmini, even on IAS quota. They lack that motivation for reform, and they are only now learning to enjoy old powers, with the lockdown.

Think of the power of a civil servant ordering, hey, you 138 crore demented children, you will be on curfew between 9 pm and 5 am because didn’t mummy say it’s dangerous in the dark? And listen again, if you live in the green zone, you can eat tutti frutti ice cream. In orange, maybe strawberry. In the red zone, only vanilla, and that too if I can have it delivered to you. Then say thank you, jaan hai, toh jahaan hai. And reform, you want me to give up these powers? I haven’t even learnt to write a clean memo yet.


Also read: Situation normal, but all locked up: How Modi govt has risked incapacitating India


 

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215 COMMENTS

  1. What is understood by ‘reformist’ ?

    Reform can be positive or negative. By international standards, reforms that improve living standards, provide jobs, education and healthcare are considered worthy That is not really in the agenda of the BJP govt. – even though it is in their rhetoric.

    BJP’s reform is ‘cultural nationalism’ : make India Hindu. So their reforms are to assert Hindu supremacy : (1) re-write history, even fabricate (2) put Muslims into a non-citizen class (3) restore primacy of caste Hindus, and keep low castes and minorities as servants for the swarnas and (4) promote mythology and pseudo science. For this, their reforms are Article 370, CAA-NRC, create conditions for removing reservation, change school syllabus to inculcate the feeling that Hindus are owners of the country, etc.

    In a boastful speech that Modi gave to suited and booted Hindus in a 5 star hotel, he cited these reform targets, thumped his left palm on the table, and said ‘Done’. Article 370, done; triple talaq, done… He had a string of self congratulatory ‘Dones’. The suited and booted Hindus applauded.

    Due to the wickedness inherent in the RSS-BJP’s reform agenda, they cover up with modern rhetoric about 5 trillion economy etc. However, they themselves say all those claims like creating 2 crore jobs , doubling farm incomee etc. are only jumlas.

    SG is using international understanding of reforms and finds Modi does not make the list. However, that does not mean Modi does not have a reformist agenda. Modi’s reformist agenda is based on Hindutva, or as Nehru said, fascism, Hindu style. SG should question that agenda. SG is wrong to include Vajpayee in the list of conventional reformists. Vajpayee was also a Sanghi, but he inherited a bureaucracy that was still not infiltrated with Sanghis, and he could not carry out the infiltration because he did not have a majority. He was no different than Modi. Nowadays, it is fashionable to recall Vajpayee and even Advani as moderate Hindus. They weren’t.

    Based on the RSS’s concept of reform, the BJP is reformist ! Due to Indian inefficiency, their reform projects, which are fascist and wicked in intent, have floundered ! Had Indians the maniacal efficiency of the Germans, the result would have been Hitlerian.

    Indians are slow with good reforms. But maybe their inefficiency gives some protection from their own wickedness !! Indian inefficiency is our survival asset.

  2. Subin, excellent and correct points.

    You have pointed out the poor planning for implementation – for example the calibrating the ATM machines for the new notes; or designing the new note to fit the existing machines.

    Likewise, the mess created when NRC was tried in Assam.

    However, the problem is not just on the implementation : it is the so-called ‘bold reform ideas’. The problem is they all stem from an inherent wickedness taught by the RSS. That is the root of the problem. Wickedness was behind demonetisation – the purpose was to get the upper hand in the UP elections by having control of the money supply, and starving the opposition of funds. For that, destroying the the economy is not an issue for them. Likewise, CAA-NRC when taken together aimed to declare say 30% of Muslims as non-citizens and put them in concentration camps – that is an RSS driven desire. India was heading for civil war, Covid saved India – temporarily.

    Wickedness is the driving force. In some ways, it is a grace that Indian inefficiency gets in the way of implementation ! Otherwise, if we had the same wickedness of the Nazis and German efficiency, it would be even more catasthropic !

    Indian inefficiency for implementation of a good reform idea is a problem; the same Indian inefficiency may save India when the reform idea is wicked !!

  3. SG is mostly right.

    But then why did a good section of the Hindus imagine Modi would bring economic reforms ? His slogan of 2014 ‘Minimum government, maximum governance’ was just acting. They were words invented by his American Hindu campaign managers, which Modi neither understood nor believed. The Hindu middle class thought it was a new dawn, which when added to the communal diatribes against Muslims and the resentment created against 70 years of Congress rule, filled them with great hope and made them delusional.

    I do not agree that Vajpayee was a reformer. He was brought up also in the RSS school of fascism, it is just that he did not have a majority, he had to play the moderate. At his time, M.M. Joshi tried to bring in Hinduised education, Sushma Swaraj told govt. employees to answer the phone with ‘Jai Shri Ram’, and Modi’s butchery of 2002 was done under Vajpayee’s watch.

    Modi’s upbringing was in the RSS shakha, and ‘cultural reform’ to make India a Brahmanic Hindu state is the only goal. Now they have a majority, that is what Modi is doing : rewriting history books, brainwashing children by doctoring school books, building Patel statue, renaming roads with Muslim roots with Hindu names, promoting yoga, psuedo science etc. Subjugating minorities is the core part of the RSS’s reform doctrine, which Golwalkar derived from Hitler. Modi has rock star status with Hindu NRIs who have best of both worlds : live abroad and believe Modi is making Hindus a superpower.

    India’s problem is the RSS. It has become a state within a state. It dictates all policy. Appointments are made by their diktat, not by merit. Raghuram Rajan and other educated people cannot work with them. They do not want intellectuals (they call them urban Naxals). It is like Goebbels said Germany did not need Jewish intellectualism. They want storm troopers like Anurag Thakur, Tejasw, Sadhvii etc.. Such people occupy all positions.

    India has no way out. The die is cast. The Hindus knowingly or unknowingly opted for fascism. The consequences have to follow. In the case of Nazi Germany, their madman created a war machine and jobs, and invaded countries in pursuit of lebensraum and a Greater Germany, and killed the minority. But that was not sustainable, the Soviet Union, the UK and the USA finished him and Germany. Here, Modi has been brought up with the notion of Akhand Bharat, but he cannot go for invasion of neighbours as we are in a nuclear age. But he can go for extermination of minorities. However, that will lead to civil war. This programme is not sustainable and it is not conducive to a stable growing economy. Modi has taken a growing economy and wrecked it, but he has continued with the RSS programme of ‘Hindu cultural nationalism’. He has Hindu support. But given the economic decline, how long will the second be sustainable ?

    Hitler and Goebbels also asked Germans to continue making sacrifices for the German nation, while defeat was written. When the Soviet forces were 1 km from Berlin, they committed suicide, and the remaining deluded Germans had to surrender.

    The biggest mistake Congress has made is to allow the RSS the freedom to operate, and become a state within a state. There is no way India can recover from the damage the RSS has inflicted and will continue to inflict. The economy cannot be retrieved, and no one can dislodge the RSS hold. Many Hindus will continue with delusions and stoutly defend Modi. So the logical consequence has to follow : economic collapse, civil war and disintegration. That has always been the outcome of fascism everywhere, and India will be no exception. I would request Hindus to engage their brain and look at the past record of fascism.

  4. MODI JI’S STRENGTH IS GREAT JUMLAAS, MIDNIGHT ANNOUNCEMENTS I.E. GST, DEEMONETISATION, LOCKDOWNS. AND THEN PASSING ON THE BUCK TO BLAME. WHOEVER IS HANDY. .HE HAS CREATED BOTH SOCIAL AND ECONOMICAL MESS INDIA WILL TAKE A CENTURY TO GET OUT. MARK MY WORDS.
    ONLY HIS CRONIES CORPORATES ARE BENEFICIERIES.

    GOD SAVE OUR COUNTRY

  5. Shekhar Gupta is known to create false equivalence to an extent that it jeopardises national security interests. For example, Shekhar Gupta mentioned that Indian Army is going to coup as it is tapping on indian politicians. The reality remained that Indian military intelligence unit discovered links of indian politicians with Pakistan’s ISI. And thus, the term ‘presstitutes’ was coined by then General.

    Shekhar Gupta agains does one more hit job; targetting bureaucrats and creating a false equivalence of license-quota-raj which arised due to covid. He conveniently ignores reforms by Commerce and Finance ministry under covid times which enables business to reduce bureaucracy. Now, the less informed readers get flown in the emotions, but Shekhar Gupta, we all know what you are. A typical presstitute for hire. Other media houses work in the same way. In the age of internet, the revenue are dwindling because they didn’t re-invent their businessm model. The new business model is do a hitjob for hire. This is also well explained in the book called ‘NDTV Frauds’.

    If you can get an itinerary of Shekhar Gupta to Netherlands and get his postbox, you will know his buyers.

    • The Editor: You might call yourself an Editor but you come off as a slightly better educated version of an itchy-groined Neanderthal from the BJP IT Cell or the Bajrang Dal.

      Your post is devoid of substance, argument or plain facts – although you make up for that by abuse and character defamation of Mr Shekhar Gupta. Whilst you bray like a demented donkey when it comes to hurling abuse at Mr Shekahar Gupta here, you fail spectacularly in marshalling facts and constructing a counter-argument to his thesis.

      You describe Mr Shekar Gupta as a “presstitute”, a word that is perhaps Hindutva’s gift to the English language. But tell me Editor saab: Doesn’t that term not apply to Arnab Goswami? And to other Modi friendly journalists like Sudhir Chaudhary, Rajat Sharma, Smita Prakash etc. Or is the adjective “presstitute” reserved only for those journalists that do not sing praises to the 56 inch chested Gujarati Messiah at whose altar you worship?

      I do not agree with Mr Gupta’s ranking of PM Modi’s performance:
      “ A+ for ideas, C- for implementation, and maybe B- on the rankings, essentially because of the bankruptcy code, some PSU bank mergers and GST”

      But I think that I can counter-argue without resorting to the techniques that you picked up from the likes of Babu Bajrangi, Tejaswi Surya, Adityanath or Kapil Mishra. One can disagree without being disagreeable Editor saab.

  6. ***Congress = We have just one family that loots.
    ***BJP = We are one large family of looters.
    ***O Gullible People of India, judge for yourself which kind of looter you would prefer, or perhaps you could do very well without a ‘Government’. Gone are those days when a POLITICIAN could be trusted. Perhaps in future it would be better to live without the presence of a Government !

  7. An opinion of a journalist whose most consequential decision is what to publish or what to write? Not what to do and deliver? Behavioral economics suggests that if a person is not extreme, they don’t get noticed. In today’s dynamic world opinions are losing meaning. The rant is without data. And interpretation.

  8. Beautifully illustrated. First of all let’s not get into this BJP vs. Cong vs. Others ding dong. Opposition’s role is to continuously rant about this and that and government’s role is accountability. I’m a citizen of this great nation and i want my country to work on implementation instead rhetorics. This chest thumping, honesty, paper planning, endless yogna making for poor etc. would yield nothing if everything comes back to zero.

    Typically, especially from the majority a common answer is this “Cong has ruled for more than 50 years, so give them at least 25” and in doing so, what will happen in between. Reforms would / are being made in the name of Desi, Make in India, Local catchy liners but when it comes to implementation ; always we are seeing one lame excuse and shift blaming. The latest life saver for the govt. is Covid.

    So let’s say the writer is saying’ Enough of the reforms, but we need implementation. So, who’s listening. And if we are not, there are many many articles that come and go but nothing happens. Or may be something might happen one day when a situation like “George Floyd” might engulf this great nation to bring about the CHANGE.

    • ‘The latest life saver for the govt. is Covid.’

      In fact, Covid is a life saver for India. Before it, India was heading for civil war over CAA-NRC and concentration camp.

      That is put off temporarily. The designer of CAA-NRC is in hospital with Covid.

  9. The funny thing is all these Charasis lament that BJP came to power the second it must be because they messed with voting machines. Standard nonsense spewed by these liberal Aandus who believe that every Indian but themselves are fools and must be liberated . My suggestion . Liberated the Congress party from the chief Charasi and his mother and, they may be in for a surprise. India was ruled by these Congressis for 60 years and they effed this country. Atleast give the BJP equal chance to do the same.!

    • What a stupid comment! Everybody knows that the BJP messed with voting machines during the elections ( which was also caught on camera). You are probably the only ignorant idiot in the country. Congress looted India for 60 years, so you want BJP to have an equal share of the loot? How unpatriotic! And yet morons like yourself call themselves NATIONALISTS !!! That’s mighty hilarious!

      • A brilliant retort Ms Rinku !

        Bhakths like Mr Babakan subscribe to the flawed idea: “two wrongs make a right”. And exactly as you point out, they rationalise the actions of the BJP as follows: “Congress looted for 60 years, so now it is the BJP’s turn to loot”.

        And worse still , many of the looters from the Congress and other parties, especially those facing corruption or other serious charges simply crossed over and joined the BJP ! Not only do they not get prosecuted as they belong to the ruling – or rather ruining – party, they also get a fresh chance to continue where they left off.

        Regardless of who happens to be in power, all Indian politicians and from all political parties – barring perhaps AAP – are in an unholy alliance with crony capitalists who finance their elections and other activities in return for favours. The “neta – crony capitalist” nexus continues with the BJP, indeed with much larger picking for the crony capitalist, especially if you happen to be a Gujarathi one.

        Not that these facts will matter to members of the Modi cult like Mr Babakan. If Modi says 2+2 = 5, the Babakans of the world will go about beating up people who say it is 4. After which PM Modi will lock them up for sedition !

        Welcome to Lynchistan !

    • Mr Babakan: Well, your post seems to confirm that the damage the Congress inflicted in 60 years was done in 6 short years by the BJP under Modi. Clearly, the Delhi University graduate has put India on the much-ballyhooed bullet train to ruin !

      Thank you Mr Babakan for validating my many posts attesting to the gross incompetence and spectacular mismanagement of the economy by the Modi regime.

      And now, thanks to termite man Amit Shah’s bombastic boast in the Parliament that India would recover Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, Aksai Chin and so on, we now have the Chinese occupying Indian territory in Ladakh. Clearly Corona Virus is not the only thing the Chinese have sent across to India. And in case you were awake in your history classes, you would probably have read about the disastrous 1962 Indo-chinese war and the hiding India received back then.

      Meanwhile, on the 34th Anniversary of Operation Blue Star, some Sikhs wary of Hindutva seem to be restarting their Khalistan project…

      The problem with bhakths like you is that you justify the crimes, yes the crimes of the BJP by pointing out to similar crimes under the Congress. Thus Modi’s Godhra pogroms of 2002 targeting must not be criticised because of Rajiv Gandhi’s 1984 pogroms targeting Sikhs. I guess your ilk will now justify Modi’s débâcle in Ladakh with Nehru’s similar defeats in 1962.

      In any case, isn’t it about time that Indians held whoever happened to be in power accountable for their actions ? Regardless of the party or the person who holds the reins of power? Why this deification of a flawed, authoritarian man who certainly is not the Indian answer to Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew that the middle classes have always wanted? And has not only reversed the economic gains of the past decades but also weakened the brittle glue that holds India together.

      In any case, as things stand today in non-Akhand Bharat, the “Dhokla paradigm” or the “Gujarat Model” of running India has derailed like the bullet train hasn’t it ?

      • ‘Well, your post seems to confirm that the damage the Congress inflicted in 60 years was done in 6 short years by the BJP under Modi.’

        In Modi’s election advertisment in 2014, ‘give me just 60 months, I can do more than Congress in 60 years’.

        After demonetisation, he said give me just 58 days to see its benefits.

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