CAPITAL LETTER. Modi and the burden of expectations

The spin doctors are back in action. Barring Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj, whose absence from the spotlight is rather conspicuous, all the other senior Cabinet ministers are dishing out interviews, participating in television shows, and holding press conferences and public rallies. The ruling dispensation has launched an impressive publicity drive to celebrate the completion of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s one year in office.

The effort is clearly to recreate the halcyon days of last summer when Candidate Modi infused India with expectation. Even in nondescript towns such as Hardoi and Gorakhpur, lakhs would queue up to catch a glimpse of the man who promised them security, schools, 24-hour electricity, water, toilets, jobs and good returns for the farmer.

Watching a re-run of his pre-election speeches, I could only marvel at the sheer energy and commitment in his promise. He was going to transform lives. He signified hope against the despair created by the ma-bete ki sarkar (mother-son government) at the Centre and similar apparently inept governments in the States. He made promises to everyone: farmers, traders, youth, women and job-seekers.

One year down the line, the Modi sarkar has delivered a mixed bag — a sharp upward revision in GDP numbers to 7.4 per cent in 2014-15, a dip in core sector growth, a considerable jump in construction from 2.96 per cent to 4.6 per cent from 2013-14 to 2014-15, a dip in services from 11.52 to 8.42 per cent. Domestic investment is an area which even Finance Minister Arun Jaitley agrees remains a challenge.

The biggest disappointment is in the farm sector where production this year is expected to come down by over five per cent. The rabi season was hard for the farmer because the Centre mismanaged urea import which led to chaos at the onset of the sowing season. Blackmarketing was rampant and in some States, the scarce urea was distributed through police stations. By the government’s own admission, farmer suicides have increased by 26 per cent to 1,109 deaths in 2014. This is up from 879 in 2013, according to data shared by the Minister of State for Agriculture Mohanbhai Kundaria. Contrast this with the promise made by Candidate Modi to the farmer, not once but several times during his campaign (at Bharat Vijay rallies in Mirzapur on May 9, in Bettiah on May 7): “We have devised a formula in our manifesto which no one has thought of in the last 60 years. This formula will calculate the input price — seed, water, fertiliser everything. We will top it with 50 per cent profit and then calculate the MSP,” he said, waving to hopeful crowds. “ Kisanon ke liye achche din aane wale hain ,” (good days are ahead for the farmer).

But in its action taken report on the recommendations of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture presented this April, the Centre rejected the suggestion by the National Commission of Farmers that MSP should be 50 per cent more than the weighted cost of production. “Fixing an MSP on a cost-plus basis would discourage efficiency in the sector and negate our efforts to bring down cost of cultivation,” the ministry of agriculture maintained in the report. Accordingly, not only have the increases in MSP for various crops come down, the total outlays for agriculture have been reduced by about 10.4 per cent, from ₹31,868 crore to ₹28,050 crore.

Barring the Jan Dhan Yojana, no other scheme compares with mega policies such as the MNREGA and the Right to Information (RTI) which were pushed by the UPA in its first year of assuming power. In fact, the social sector has taken a big hit with reduced overall allocations for education and only a marginal increase in the health budget from ₹30,645 crore in 2014-14 to ₹33,152 crore in 2015-16, making India among the lowest spending countries on public health.

This is an area where the staunchest advocate of free market would have to concede that the best-run education and health systems, especially in developing countries as proved in Cuba, Costa Rica and Sri Lanka, are those built through combining public financing and provisioning healthcare. But last year, the Centre went so far as to abruptly cut the health budget to ₹24,000 crore in sharp contrast to the commitment in the 12th Plan to consistently raise funding and take it to 2.5 per cent of the GDP.

Life has thus returned to a more earthly pace, with disruptions in both Houses stalling the passage of major reforms such as the Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty Second Amendment) Bill to introduce the Goods and Services Tax (GST), and the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) Bill, 2015.

Indeed, reality is never quite as attractive as an idea. Pundits and the Opposition are quick to point out that Prime Minister Modi is an unexceptional administrator compared to the ‘Superman’ who was Candidate Modi. But this is where everyone underestimates the BJP and Modi’s extraordinary power to build dream sequences out of mundane reality.

The Prime Minister did it successfully in Gujarat and in Delhi, he has the formidable communication skills of Arun Jaitley to supplement his mass connect. A spectacular narrative has accordingly been constructed in the past fortnight of credibility, political accountability and authority having been restored by the government. Of corruption having been eradicated from high places. Indeed, bringing political authority back to the PMO was indeed much desired and India certainly needed the “hope factor” which the Prime Minister continues to symbolise. But with due apologies to government spokespersons, even the much maligned UPA I had not recorded any corruption scandal in its first year. And so far as “eradicating” corruption at the level where the state connects with its citizens, we have a long way to go.

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