 "Modi outlines his economic vision.. at last!")
Narendra Modi spent much of the first forty five minutes of his speech at the BJP's national council meeting on Sunday taking pot-shots at the Congress. Launching a political counter offensive at the government on issues ranging from Mani Shankar Aiyar’s Chaiwallah jibes to Congress’s reluctance to appoint Rahul Gandhi as its prime ministerial candidate, Modi also sought to challenge the GOP’s elitist traditions by brandishing his own origins as a railway tea seller. The speech had all the ingredients of an engaging, acerbic political attack.
A good half hour in the latter part of that speech though was dedicated to the less fiery but more important objective of articulating his idea for India. And thankfully it wasn't just an enunciation of a 'Congress Mukt Bharat' - the chant that rumbled through jarringly at his Mumbai Mahagarjana rally leading to accusations by commentators that Modi was merely stating but not presenting specific solutions to India's deluge of problems,
This time Modi unveiled a canvas that had broad brush strokes of the proposals, goals and intentions that charted out his vision to get the country out of the current state of crisis. 'Modinomics' was on full display finally. In a speech laced with shades of politics, economics, social issues and spirituality, Modi tackled a surfeit of ideas to appeal to a wide audience - ranging from plans for cross country bullet trains, to developing a hundred new cities and satellite towns, setting up mechanisms to tackle price rise and building IIMs & IITs in every state of the country.
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It felt too sweeping at times, overtly ambitious perhaps, given the coalition & federal compulsions Modi will have to deal with if he comes to power & the tattered economy he will inherit. But it hit the bar on charting out a grand vision to counter the Congress’s deficiency of ideas. Rahul Gandhi’s speech two days ago was impassioned, but stressed on achievements rather than initiatives, and focused on the usual jaded planks of secularism and inclusive growth. Manmohan Singh’s defensive press conference a few days ago did nothing either to tell us what the Congress had in mind to rebuild India’s future.
Modi’s pitch though sought to present a direct antithesis to some of Congress’s pet ideologies (of dole-a-nomics for instance), but not merely by portraying himself as a messiah of big business and believer of neo-liberal prescriptions on development and growth. His ‘rainbow’ strategy for India sought to draft a framework to preserve India’s family-based value system, focus on agriculture & women power, protect ‘jal, jungle aur jameen’ (water, jungles and land), and empower youth, democracy and knowledge – in effect proposing something for everyone in the wide spectrum of India’s diverse electorate.
He spoke at length on infrastructure - reviving shuttered power plants, modernizing railways, setting up gas grids and connecting India through optical fiber networks, but also combined that vision with proposals that will have a resonance with the aam aadmi and India’s farmers – building agro infrastructure, setting up mechanisms to monitor real time plantation and harvest of crops as well as courts to try hoarders and black marketers. Modi spoke also of building Brand India through 5 Ts - talent, tradition, trade, tourism & technology and said India’s demographic and democratic dividend along with these plans will set in motion the investment cycle and revive India’s stalled growth.
The proposals are dramatic, diverse and seek to espouse best practices from countries like China and Japan which have successfully confronted the challenges of urbanization by building high class railway systems and new cities. They promise to tackle all the issues economists and industrialists have been pressing this government to address – industrial growth led GDP revival, the need to harness a vocationally skilled workforce, rapid urbanization to create jobs & lift people out of poverty, technologically aided agricultural reform as well as a crackdown on key elements of India’s food chain that are exacerbating inflation.
The devil though lies in the implementation. Some of what Modi said has also been spoken by the Congress – the DMIC for instance is an illustration of what Modi is proposing to do with railways; the NSDC meanwhile was launched with the very objective of training millions on occupational skills. The difficulty with this government has been on the realization of, and not the setting of goals. Modi’s track record in Gujarat should instill some confidence on that front, but it would still be a challenge to achieve even half of what is being projected.
However with the extant government unwilling to stipulate anything novel, the AAP unraveling in its own confusions, Modi’s prescriptions, though a tad over-confident, did much to instill confidence and hope.