CAN
THE GUJARAT MODEL WORK NATIONALLY?
Economists, like astrologers, vary widely in
quality and root bias. Both are into handing out prescriptions on how to
improve one’s fortunes, and both do not worry over much about the burdens of
efficacy or proof. By the time the results are out, astrologers and economists
alike, have wrapped themselves in layers of protective caveats and codicils, or
pushed off to the World Bank, IMF, the United Nations, or some professorial
job/well paid think- tank abroad.
Some are mealy-mouthed about the actual growth
of Gujarat during the Modi years, grudgingly admitting a higher trajectory, but
caviling that it is still not all that great, not good enough to justify the
hype and hoopla. These worthies need to be reminded of the difficulties of a
state turning Right into market-driven economics, pushed by a dedicated but one
state act of a Chief Minister.
This, while the country at large has been turning
determinedly Left, in a paroxysm of statist socialism, orchestrated by a ruling
party with a nostalgia for the seventies and eighties. Back then, majorities in
parliament were the norm, and nobody in power circles talked about gauche
things like money, or the necessary evil called ‘the economy’.
It was, instead, a high-minded orgy of
employment over profit, social objectives over viability, ideology over truth,
and other such stirring nonsense much beloved of the thinkers of the time.
Remnants, no, entire continents, of this kind of date-expired belief still come
from the worst run states, drowning in misery and squalor to date.
States such as Communist Kerala, which would be
worse off than almost anywhere on this planet, if it were not for the hard
earned Gulf money of millions of Keralites gone abroad. And West Bengal, ruined
in mind and body by years of Communism, and now, muddle-headed populism. Its
unjustified culture of entitlement without work and discipline, that has retarded
Bengal. Or the gasp inducing backwardness of Bihar, where any stone thrown will
tend to land on an anti-social of some kind, and any improvement, however
miniscule, is still called an upswing.
These states are also the loudest in
proclaiming they have done excellently well, and Gujarat has achieved nothing
compared to them. Oommen Chandy calls the Gujarat Model ‘a farce’, and well he
might, because if he doesn’t laugh, he will surely have to cry.
Less than a year ago, Congress propaganda had
it that the architect of the Gujarat Model, its Chief Minister Narendra Modi,
had no takers outside the state borders of Gujarat. When this lie was nailed
with the Modi Wave surging across the country, the attack was modified to include
his model of governance. Meanwhile, Modi had grown in stature and popularity
with talk of development, growth, jobs, industry, super-fast railways and the
like.
Congress, smug in its assumptions, was waiting
to pounce on the BJP’s Hindutva agenda when revealed, and, poor chaps, they are
still waiting, even as the 7th stage of polling is concluded.
In
between, alarmed at Modi’s success even as campaign head, the Congress tried
their ‘Anybody but Modi’ tactic by having their media minions try and sow
discord. They feverishly suggested the names of various other BJP leaders. This
too fell flat, and Modi was nominated the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate
after all.
NaMo meanwhile, kept working throughout with a
vigour, stamina and determination not previously seen in Indian electoral
politics. This degree of application and demonstrated leadership is a key, if
intangible, element of the much vaunted Gujarat model. A system is only as good
as its driver after all.
Congress now said Modi had done nothing special
to foster the relative prosperity evident across almost all parameters in
Gujarat; it was the innate industriousness of the Gujarati people, and that he
was just taking credit for it. Conversely, finding this line was actually
perceived as back-handed praise, Congress switched tack once again: Now
Congress said the statistics, even those compiled by national agencies outside
Gujarat Government control, were fudged, the reality on the ground was
different, only certain sections prospered, big business were the only
beneficiaries, and so on.
The flummoxed Congress could not however
explain how Modi had won three consecutive terms with healthy majorities, every
time. Besides, there was the ever present communal slur, but belied by the fact
that BJP has won, even the municipal elections in Muslim majority wards, not
once by fluke, but time and again.
Still to the Congress, Modi is a ‘Feku’, a name coined by the substantially out-of-work
Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh, a minor royal, and author of a
thousand outrageous quips. He is only rivalled in the arena of boomeranging
insults, by fellow senior Congressman Mani Shankar Iyer. But ‘Mani’, to give
him his quixotic due, laments his own irrelevance with the same prominence as
he insults Modi and the Gujarat Model of development.
Actual Right-leaning economists, as opposed to
politicians from the UPA or the regional parties, like Bibek Debroy, tend to
praise the Gujarat Model, even placing it at No. 1 in the state rankings three
years running now. And Jagdish Bhagwati from Columbia University, along with
his colleague Arvind Panagariya, have made clear they want to contribute significantly
to a Modi-led NDA government.
But, inevitably, then there are others, like
the welfare economist Amartya Sen, and his chela
Jean Dreze, who trash GDP growth and jobs/industry oriented Gujarat, and for
that matter, all of Sonia Gandhi run India too, for its inadequate record on
alleviating poverty at ‘the bottom of the pyramid’ as the late Management Guru
Prahlad had it. They want more given to the poorest of the poor, never mind
what it does to the balance sheet.
It does, of course, set the politician up as an
annadata, a far loftier position to
comfortably occupy, than wanting to be judged and juried on performance, like
the erstwhile chai-walla Narendra Modi. The Gujarat Model puts the cat
amongst the pigeons. So it is natural to hear a lot of squawking and seeing feathers
that fly.
(1,003
words)
April
30th, 2014
Gautam
Mukherjee
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