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People retain hope in Modi, but time's running out (One year of Modi government)
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By Amulya GanguliNo smart cities, no bullet trains, no spike in employment, no visible
improvement in infrastructure, continuing logjam over bills in
parliament, carping by in-house critics. Even then, few will say that
Narendra Modi will lose if the elections are held in the near future.
The
reason is, first, the realisation that one year is not a long enough to
give a definitive judgment on the performance of a government,
especially when it is emerging from the black hole of the failures of
its predecessor.
Secondly, it is also realised that Modi may have
been unable to anticipate the mischief-making potential of some of the
trouble-makers, including those within the Sangh parivar.
It is
the appreciation of these difficulties by the general public which
explains why he has passed muster in an opinion poll whereas if the
opposition parties are to be believed, his government has failed
miserably.
However, it is undeniable that since some of the high
expectations with which Modi assumed office have begun to be eroded, he
cannot allow the present sense of drift to continue. Unless there is a
perceptible upturn in the economy in the next 12 months, the warning
bells will begin to ring.
Hindsight suggests that Modi indulged
in too much hyperbole during the election campaign. The bombast worked
satisfactorily against the dismal backdrop of the virtually
non-performing and scam-ridden Manmohan Singh government.
But,
Modi's spin doctors evidently did not realise that raising expectations
too high - for instance, on the recovery of black money - carries the
risk of an equally big disappointment if the hopes are not met.
The
risk is all the greater because the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) main
base of support at present is the notoriously impatient middle class
which believes in quick results.
It was this class which gave the
Congress 200-plus seats in 2009 on the basis of high growth rates
(although the party's 'socialists' ascribed the good showing to its
populism) and then brought it down with a crash to 44 seats when the
growth rates tumbled.
The same fate can await Modi unless he pushes the economic reforms with much greater vigour than at present.
As
may be expected, Modi's tenure has been marked by a mixture of good and
bad luck. Even as he benefitted from the falling oil prices and low
inflation, unseasonal rain aggravated the distress of farmers.
But,
in political terms, the government has been a victim of what can be
deemed an exceptional case of misfortune since its principal opponent,
the Congress, has decided to adopt an unabashedly cussed attitude.
As
much is evident from the virtual u-turn it has taken on its own
economic agenda, introduced in 1991, by following what finance minister
Arun Jaitley has called an anti-growth line which, he says, is to the
"left of Marx".
As a result, crucial bills such as the Goods and
Services Tax (GST) have been held up. But, the worst obstructionism
engineered by the Congress relates to the land acquisition law, which
constitutes a key feature of the government's development blueprint.
Unless
the law is amended, the government will be unable to implement its
"make in India" plans which aim at making the country a manufacturing
hub.
However, it is not the Congress alone which is to blame for
the stalemate. No less guilty are saffron outfits like the protectionist
Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM) and the anti-reforms Bharatiya Mazdoor
Sangh (BMS).
Modi, therefore, is battling not only the
anti-development groups cutting across party lines, but also a widely
prevalent mindset which is deeply suspicious of the private sector and
pro-market policies.
Arguably, he has been unable to gauge the
intensity of the opposition to capitalist endeavours even within the
saffron camp though he is one of its key members.
The reason
perhaps is that he never pushed this line as energetically as he is now
trying to do on a national scale. If his efforts in this direction in
Gujarat were not opposed as stoutly as the SJM, the BMS and the
Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (BKS) are doing now, it was because the
pro-business policies were confined to a state.
Modi's miscalculation has been that he did not prepare these groups about what he intends to do on an all-India scale.
It is only belatedly that he seems to have sought the help of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to tame the nay-sayers.
Earlier,
the RSS had backed off on the Ram temple issue, but had advised the BJP
to listen to the saffron organisations on the reforms.
The
intensification of the anti-Modi campaign by the Congress has apparently
left the government with no option but to ask the Sangh parivar's
mentor to stand by its side on the land issue.
Whatever the
impact of the interventions by the RSS, the Agovernment doesn't have
much time to lose to fulfil the expectations - "probably unrealistic",
as Reserve Bank governor, Raghuram Rajan has said - of those who voted
for Modi in large numbers in the hope that he will bring about India's
economic recovery.
(Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached at [email protected])