#Modi365 - Waiting In Hope

At the conclusion of one year in office, people want more from Prime Minister Modi… and fast.

Narendra Modi’s government has completed one year in office. It is a little early to judge its performance. If a review is still done, it would average 6 out of 10 on several parameters. These are listed below. The rating is subjective and might differ from analyst to analyst.

Prime Minister Modi

Personally, he scores a high 8 on 10. Not in years has India seen such a committed and dedicated prime minister. Modi does not have a life outside prime ministry. Others go back to family and friends. Modi returns to work. When he says he doesn’t take a vacation, he truly doesn’t. He puts in an average of 16 to 18 hours of daily work. It would destroy a lesser man.

Several years ago, one of his aides told this writer that Modi would be interested in a prime ministry only if he could transform it to the country’s benefit. This is a work in progress. He is slowly getting there. He is saddled with a corrupt and extortionist bureaucracy and a below-average Union cabinet. He is not complaining. Ministers and bureaucrats whinge about long working hours. Some don’t get home before 10 pm. A few like working hard. They see a chance to prove themselves. Whether they like it or not, Modi won’t flag as taskmaster. They know it.

Delivery, however, remains an issue. Modi is aware of this. In the life of an Indian government, any productivity is seen in the first two-and-a-half years. Thereafter, the regime slips into election mode. The executive becomes dysfunctional and risk-averse. Knowing Modi, this may not happen. But without a packed calendar of policy and programme implementation, Modi would have achieved far less than he set out to. It is no excuse that India is a slow elephant. The youth bulge has made it a tired and disreputable cliché.

For himself, Narendra Modi rates high. But that is of limited utility till he gets his team cracking. Here is the first set of problems the prime minister faces.

This article is part of our special series on Modi government’s first anniversary in power.

The Team

Modi has a subpar finance minister (Arun Jaitley); a home minister (Rajnath Singh) more suited to a political role; a transportation minister (Nitin Gadkari) who for some reason instils no confidence; and a foreign minister (Sushma Swaraj) who has gone into the shadows. Contrarily, Smriti Irani (otherwise a gem) comes across as too scrappy for the solidity and sedateness required for her particular office.

How Modi reshuffles his team is his business. He may also think it unnecessary. It is imperative. He faces a problem like India did in the immediate aftermath of the 1962 Chinese aggression. The Americans agreed to emergency military supplies but found Indian infrastructure totally inadequate to receive and absorb them. There is a transmission problem here. Prime Minister Modi is generating and routing a lot of work to ministers who are mostly incompetent to handle the volumes. This is not regime specific. The same goes for the bureaucracy. It is also generally obstructive.

In his earlier pieces, this writer has made suggestions. One of these is to replace Jaitley with a reputed technocrat. This was the P. V. Narasimha Rao-Manmohan Singh arrangement that worked well till it lasted. The issue is not about personalities but delivery. If the team does not deliver, Modi goes down. This will directly impact India’s growth and rise. A lot rides on Modi’s success which he may not fully be aware of.

Communication Mismanagement

Linked to team under performance is a peculiar inability to publicize the Modi government’s achievements. For a prime minister who won the general election on successful communication, this is doubly a mystery.

Modi and the media have had troubled relations since 2001. It predates the riots. All this while, Modi was perceived in opposition to the Indian National Congress (INC)-ruled Centre, media antagonism worked to his advantage. People thought the entire political establishment was conspiring against Modi (it was) and united in his favour.

Now he is not in the opposition. He is the establishment. People have a right to know what the government is doing. There has always operated a soft bigotry of low expectations from the Congress; what can anyone expect from that habitual vacationer, Rahul Gandhi? But the demands made of Modi are exceptionally high. People voted him on that basis. Because they feel a special affinity to him, they demand greater accountability from his government.

The accountability is there; but there is no communication to put it on solid footing. Modi expects his good work to show up by itself. It is not working to plan because of the United Progressive Alliance’s rotten legacy. The work of recovery will be slow because there is so much mess to clear.

To name one, the PSU banks’ NPA crisis is horrendous. If its full extent becomes public, the country’s credit-worthiness would sink. Outside government and banking circles, few know the damaging details. The public is blissfully unaware. It needs to be educated without setting off alarm bells. This is one of the facets of public communication which is missing.

Modi hopes that Jaitley with close ties to the media would be able to plug the gaps. Only partly. Communication lies at the core of politics. Modi’s politics faces serious problems because government-to-people communications have broken down. It can be repaired. But only Modi can do it by bringing structural changes to his prime-ministerial work style.

Foreign/Domestic Balance

This ties with the frequent criticism that Modi is more engaged with the world than India. The criticism has some merit but not a whole lot. A prime minister has a definite, emphatic and expansive foreign role. India is not an island unto itself nor is autarchy its reigning ideology.

Moreover, every one of Prime Minister Modi’s foreign visits has been necessary. He has crammed more work in them than any of his predecessors. The world had given up on India. Modi has renewed world interest in India. This is an extraordinary feat. The Great Powers clearly see a resurgent India. They won’t help if there’s nothing for them. Geopolitics is a selfish place. Modi is playing a difficult card game. He seems to know what he is doing. That alone should get him 7 on 10.

But in life as in politics, balance and moderation are critical. Foreign politics cannot be advanced at the cost of domestic affairs. You are only so strong abroad as you are domestically powerful. When Rajiv Gandhi was enmeshed in the Bofors scandal in 1987, he tried a diversionary intervention in Sri Lanka. He failed on both fronts and lost his life. Leaders perceive easier victories overseas while finding domestic politics messy. Messy it is. But there are no easier victories abroad.

It is strange that Modi should be thinking on these lines when he has four more years to go and enjoys reasonable domestic popularity. His recent visit to West Bengal where he was extra friendly to Mamata Bannerjee was an unalloyed hit. The trip to the Ramakrishna Mission was private and spiritual and should draw no commentary. The inauguration of upgraded IISCO facilities went down well with the people.

People want Narendra Modi to engage more with them. They understand he is pressed for time as prime minister. But a visit every 15 or 20 days to a randomly selected state (preferably opposition-ruled in the beginning) would famously surge his popularity. Specific to the Land Acquisition Bill, meetings with affected farmers, concerned trade union leaders, and even an essentially well-meaning person like Anna Hazare, would lighten his pressure and gain friends. No one doubts the prime minister’s intent and sincerity. But good intent backed by manifest empathy would go a long way in correcting the misperceptions. In the end, domestic politics is king.

Handling Of Economy

And in domestic politics, the economy is key. India needs masses of well-paying jobs and a vast army of successful entrepreneurs. India did not face the impoverished future of Africa at independence because of its entrepreneurs. Wealth creators will remove India’s backwardness and poverty. It is still hard to create wealth in India honestly. Ask the Tatas.

India needs explosive economic growth and Modi requires a technocrat like Raghuram Rajan (he should complete two terms as Reserve Bank governor to be considered) to head the finance ministry. Jaitley has his strengths. They are not in finance.

If the economy starts delivering, people’s fears and anxieties will diminish. They will be ready to give the prime minister more time. With a mix of early rapid and planned medium-term growth, the prime minister would be on the top of things. Accordingly, he must fashion his priorities. In the end, it is his call who he keeps in finance. But the present arrangement is not working.

Experts speak of this and that macroeconomic indicator being fair. For example, WPI inflation is down. But factory output has also dipped at the same time. Industry earnings are so uniformly poor that there is no place to hide in the stock market. The Reserve Bank has done all it can about reducing rates. It cannot compromise on inflation which mostly hurts the poor. The fiscal side has to improve and it is not shaping up at the desired pace and in the right places. It is 4 on 10 for the handling of the economy.

Legislation

Where Modi’s government scores is in legislative urgency. On the reforms side, several legislations have been passed with dangled carrots and wielded sticks. But the Goods and Services Tax and Land Acquisition Bills are stuck, the second of them badly. The Indian National Congress is to blame. But it solves nothing. The government is still responsible to get them legislated.

Could the government have done better? The Land Bill was politically mishandled. But the INC still wouldn’t have supported it. It will be isolated when the government rallies the rest of the opposition to its side and engages the farm sector kindly and sympathetically and addresses its fears. It can be done. It is the only way. For this, Modi has to travel around the country and invest time and energies in popular engagement.

Centre-State Relations

As regards involving the non-Congress opposition in his plans, Modi has made some sharp moves. While Mamata will not ally with the Bharatiya Janata Party, she loathes the Congress more. She sees hopes for West Bengal from Modi. Publicly opposed to Modi, Nitish Kumar privately would be of similar opinion in respect to his state. In her comeback, J. Jayalalithaa needs Modi a little more that the prime minister requires her for his plans.

What has really helped is that Modi is aware of the struggles faced by a reformist chief minister. He underwent them when the Centre punished Gujarat for his chief ministry. If states grow and prosper, so will India. Without a moment’s hesitation, Modi made higher tax devolutions to states as suggested by the Finance Commission.

How fairly and equitably Modi deals with chief ministers will determine in some measure Modi’s success with reforms. If the chief ministers see clear benefits in reforms, they will back him. They will support the Land Bill following the prime minister’s countrywide campaign should he undertake one. On Centre-State relations, Modi does handsomely: 7 out of 10.

Battling Corruption

The signals are also right in respect of fighting sleaze; they should fetch 8 on 10 points. The previous United Progressive Alliance government was the most corrupt since independence. Narendra Modi’s administration is the cleanest by far. There is not a hint of scandal. Manohar Parrikar, easily the most trustworthy minister in the Union cabinet, has cleaned up the defence ministry. Arms brokers and corrupt bureaucrats find no purchase.

But the culture of corruption has grown such deep roots in Delhi that the middlemen are not giving up. What has kept their tribe nourished is the slow pace of decision-making, a fallout of Modi’s obsessive checks against corruption. Any file about large expenditures, new mega projects or key appointments hibernates for weeks in the Prime Minister’s Office awaiting Modi’s clearance. He cannot rush decisions whence a scam occurs nor endlessly delay approvals. This is one of the many dilemmas he faces.

On the whole, though, he has taken India to a better place than it was one year ago. With a team of performing ministers and brilliant technocrats, he would be unassailable. If he devotes time to domestic politics and makes dedicated visits to the interiors where the poorest uphold democracy in terrible circumstances, they would bless his prime ministry. Modi became prime minister to make a difference. The country is waiting. It has not lost hope.