It ain't all Modi, Modi, Modi honey!

The Gujarat myth and how the pro-Modi din has obscured the triumphs of India's other worthy politicians

More than one piece of literature published off late has tried to dispel the notion that Gujarat is India’s sole recent success story and Narendra Modi the nation’s only answer to growth. The latest one, is a new multi dimensional development index by the Raghuram Rajan panel which identifies Gujarat as a ‘less developed state’ along others like Manipur, West Bengal, Nagaland, Andhra Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Karnataka. 

It is appropriate to note that 1 member out of the 5 member panel that drafted this report dissented on the findings because certain criteria used for the construction of the index seemingly disadvantaged Bihar in availing its due share of central funds, and under evaluated Gujarat’s progress. But the other 4 – i.e. the majority, were in consonance with the findings.

For all of Modi’s claims that Gujarat is India’s most developed state, the index ranks the state as 12^th among India’s 28 states based on the averages of ten parameters including monthly per capita consumption expenditure, education, poverty rate, female literacy, urbanization, health, share of ST/SC, connectivity, financial inclusion etc. Two other BJP poster boys – Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh have been bracketed in the ‘least developed’ states category based on these criteria, keeping Bihar, Orissa and Jharkhand company.

This reaffirms what many of Modi’s critics have said all along - that, if judged from a holistic development prism, Gujarat doesn’t exactly shine as bright as Modi would want us to believe it does. The index doesn’t give a state wise break up of performance on each of the parameters listed above, but if findings of other studies and human development indices are to be applied, presumably Gujarat fared well on criteria like per capita consumption expenditure, connectivity and urbanization while performing poorly on indices related to financial inclusion, poverty, female literacy etc.

Noted economist Y. K. Alagh writing in the Mint newspaper last month observed that while agriculture, trade and manufacturing have shown spectacular numbers in Gujarat “Overall, social indicators for backward regions and for women and the girl child are disturbing.” He cites studies which show rural poverty in eastern Gujarat to be as high as 50% and poverty levels for backward classes over 40%.

The impression then, that Gujarat is a role model for development, and Modi a messiah, is off beam. But what is also a fallacy is the idea that ‘vibrant’ Gujarat is an exception in this atmosphere of doom, for being India’s only fast growing state. As Morgan Stanley’s Ruchir Sharma observes in his incisive piece ‘The Rise of the Rest of India’ in the Foreign Affairs magazine, Uttarakhand has grown at an average rate of 11-12% since 2007, Bihar has grown at 10-11% while Gujarat along with several others like Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Haryana have grown only at between 9-10%.

One might argue that high growth rates in states like Uttarakhand and Bihar are on account of a low base effect, but in that case, the same logic should be applied to Gujarat, to say that its historic prosperity has given growth a tailwind that other states who fought with their backs against the wall didn’t enjoy.

That’s not to say Gujarat’s achievements must be brushed aside. Manufacturing accounts for 40% of Gujarat’s GDP, compared to 27% for the rest of the country. Gujarat generates about 40% of its income from industry, compared with 15% nationwide and its contribution to agriculture has doubled over the last decade.

But Sharma makes a compelling pitch for at least 5 other Chief Ministers who’ve also accomplished development goals via tangible reforms rather than statistical quirks, and without the necessary legacy benefit that Modi got. These include Nitish Kumar, Naveen Patnaik, Raman Singh, Sheila Dikshit and Shivraj Singh Chauhan.

“That these chief ministers have managed the double feat of economic success and political longevity belies the conventional wisdom about India’s doldrums” says Sharma who also believes that ‘in our hunger for economic performance, we’ve proved to be ‘tolerant of creeping authoritarianism’

.And that is perhaps what will improve Modi’s chances at the national level. While Sharma adds that it isn’t all clear, ‘that any of the bold, autocratic chief ministers can be a good fit to lead the whole country…Modi’s run for national office will depend on a growing feeling among middle-class Indians that the political paralysis in New Delhi runs so deep that the country’s rebound depends on a return to strongman rule.’

He cautions though that it doesn’t take an autocrat to deliver growth, as witnessed in emerging economies since the 1980s where ‘democratic and autocratic regimes have been equally likely to deliver GDP growth averaging more than five percent for a decade’.

No reason then, that we shouldn’t be batting for Nitish or Naveen with as much gusto as we do for Modi. At least they come without the baggage of a communal past.