The constant excitement of achhe din

The term “agitating the market”, beloved of marketing professionals, refers to the constant exercise to sustain consumer interest by introducing new offerings, product extensions, schemes and so on. It is a basic tenet of competitive market. The broad agenda of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) appears to increasingly resemble this standard marketing technique. 

Since the Bharatiya Janata Party’s stunning victory in 2014, the country’s chief executive has kept the Indian people —  consumers? — in a constant state of anticipation about the next big tamasha, acronym, experiment in social change, programme of purge and purification. The election campaign promising achhe din was the teaser but it is fair to say that this regime has been, to purloin a well-known ad line, nothing like anything. There has been no shortage of action, a stark contrast to the corruption-embroiled languor of the last days of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA). 

It started with foreign policy. The frail and aged Manmohan Singh may have led India out of international wilderness with the Indo-US nuclear deal but his quiet diplomacy was a poor match for the determined energy and ingenuity of the new PM, who built on the enormous mandate in Parliament from the get-go. 

First came the swearing-in ceremony that creatively involved the leaders of South Asian neighbours, including from Pakistan where saris for each other’s mothers were exchanged. Then there was the conspicuous red-carpet treatment to Chinese president Xi Jinping (a photo-op of the two leaders seated together on an ornate jhoola suggestive of a budding bromance). Another beautiful relationship emerged with a lame duck US president for whom Narendra Modi turned out in prime style in an outfit invoking his name in a thousand stitches.  Still, the world’s most powerful man did attend our interminable Republic Day ceremony. Drum-playing and tea ceremonies in Japan. Rock-stadium appearances in front of adoring fans chanting his name. Selfies galore. 

Domestic policy, meanwhile, was assigned a barrage of acronyms and programmes: Jan Dhan, Swachh Bharat, Make in India, Indradhanush, Stand-Up India, Start-Up India, Digital India, Smart Cities, Uday, JAM, 3S, MOM, USTTAD. One website listed 30 programmes till June 2016 with the disclaimer that this was a partial list; another listed 32 acronyms. Even the hoary old Planning Commission was disbanded and reconstituted under a robustly muscular label of National Institute for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog.  

Mr Modi had time to think of everyone. His concern for children, for instance, was expressed in a 10-point, hour-long speech that children had to compulsorily watch on Doordarshan. His anxiety for governance resulted in Christmas Day being renamed Good Governance Day. His concern for the sacred cow resulted in near India-wide beef bans and encouraged saffron multitudes to launch assaults on slaughter-houses, traders, Dalits and the murder of one innocent Muslim man. Animal spirits were unleashed among students, cow protectors and defenders of the Hindu faith and Mother India. Patriotism was radically redefined: Those who disagreed could go to Pakistan.

The government’s popularity with the business community defied all the doubters: Foreign direct investment soared, coming close to the monthly all-time high of $5.7 billion in February 2008, and GDP growth miraculously outperforming China (whose data are routinely considered miraculous too). As far as “market share” is concerned, state after state turned saffron (with the shocking exceptions of Delhi and Bihar) on the wave of this perpetual mobilisation reducing the competition to irrelevance. 

Has all this made India a haven of jobs and development, the core promise of this regime?

If foreign investors are upbeat, domestic investors seem wary. The number of investment proposals between 2014 and 2016 was 6,124, worth Rs 11.2 lakh crore and providing employment for 1.5 million people. This compares poorly with the figures for 2011-2013, the last three years of the discredited UPA — 9,000-odd proposals worth Rs 26 lakh crore providing 3.8 million jobs. The caveat: These are all proposals and we have no way of knowing how many materialised, but they are better barometer for business sentiment than opinion polls in which businesspeople diplomatically fib.

Mr Modi’s piece de resistance has undoubtedly been demonetisation, an exercise that impounded more than 80 per cent of currency in circulation in the interests, we were told, of unearthing black money. Then when the demonetised notes inconveniently came flooding into the banks, the narrative changed to digitising payments. Having effectively demonetised the Opposition ahead of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, Mr Modi found justification for this inexplicable exercise in another stunning electoral victory, followed up with robust GDP growth at 7 per cent for the quarter ended December that has deeply puzzled everyone but the regime itself. 

Now, with the appointment as chief minister of a strong-man with an impressive number of criminal charges against him, India is witnessing an amplification of the original 2014 “marketing” strategy in one of the country’s poorest and most jobless states. The question, thus, remains: Are we in for more excitement or interesting times?