After BJP’s landslide victory, the economic ideology of Narendra Modi, dubbed Modinomics, is now the central focus. It is natural to discuss the inner dynamics and underlying characteristics of Modinomics. It seems that the central tenet of Modinomics is economic growth, but economic growth doesn’t guarantee human security at all. Only economic development does.
It is alleged that in election campaigns, as a messiah of corporate houses, Modi sold, or maybe oversold, the Gujarat development model as a part of Modinomics, where he claimed that he had improved Gujarat’s infrastructure and law and order situation, had ensured uninterrupted power supply, and so forth, when he was the head of Gujarat state. However, will it be able to replicate the Gujarat model nationwide, without invoking resistance from the powerful state governments run by regional parties?
The “Crocodile of Gujarat Model” influenced voters, but did Modi use his “genie in the lamp” in Gujarat? The answer is no. From the 1960s to the 1990s, Gujarat proved its excellence in the field of engineering, chemicals, petro-chemicals, cement, textile, and ceramic. Their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) had been growing at a steady rate of 14%, well before Narendra Modi came to power.
There are a number of considerations to pinpoint the real face of Modinomics.
First: Its Modi’s brand of corporatist capitalism that falls under criticism. A lot, it seems, rests on the counterfactual: Would Gujarat have performed as well as it has without Modi? Probably. Geographically, the state enjoys several boons. Its extensive coastline has made it an export hub, and vast tracts of arid land serve as ready sites for factories. Historically, however the statistics are cut, Gujarat’s growth rate has also long outpaced India’s national average.
In 1990, when the national growth rate averaged at 3.7%, Gujarat’s was 4.8%. Similarly, in 2000, when the national growth rate was 5.6%, Gujarat’s was 6.9%. Given this track record, a more appropriate question might instead be: Why has Gujarat not performed better? It is a fact that, despite its impressive growth, Gujarat remains a discriminatory state among the states of India. Despite their almost-identical success with growth, Gujarat and Kerala differ crucially, and drastically, when it comes to social indicators.
According to data published by the Indian Planning Commission, Kerala ranks first for its development performance whilst Gujarat languishes at 11th. Drilling deeper into the figures reveals the true extent of Gujarat’s failures.
Second: Of course there are the factors that are less amenable to statistics. Where does Gujarat rank on the rule of law, social cohesion, and individual wellbeing? As Prabhat Patnaik, emeritus professor of economics at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, argues, Gujarat’s development deficits make the state a highly undesirable template. The poor development record notwithstanding, many obstacles lie in the way of Modi shaping the rest of India in the Gujarat mold.
Third: Kerala performed well in Human Development Index (HDI) depending only on its service sector. Economists dubbed it as the “Kerala Phenomenon.” There was, and is still is, ongoing debate between Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen and famous economist Jagdish Bhagwat on the development of both Kerala and Gujarat. Jagdish Bhagwat propagated the very idea of economic growth while Amartya Sen is vocal for economic development.
According to the debate, Gujarat’s development is termed by Jagdish Bhagwat as economic growth that is applicable to the developed world because there is a general standard of life for all citizens. On the other hand, Kerala’s development is dubbed by Amartya Sen as economic development that is applicable for developing countries as economic development ensures holistic development for all walks of life. This ongoing debate added a new dimension in academic discourse.
Now the question is; why is the Gujarat model so focused? Why not Kerala, who carefully orchestrated the hype behind the Gujarat model? The answers are simple: The hype behind economic growth is carefully created by the capitalists. They cherish economic growth instead of economic development. They don’t want a holistic development for the aam admi of India, because their vested interest is to concentrate assets within a handful of people, and therefore are best served by economic growth.
Fourth: There is no reason to believe that the common people of India are anti-secular. Rather, the corporate bosses of giant corporations merely change their political managers. In all democracies, corpo-political syndicates are well aware of the influence they have on the whole system. On January 15, 2009, the Adanis and Ambanis declared Modi as a PM candidate. The Modi branding had started as far back as then. On May 22, the then chief minister openly declared that a vote for Narendra Modi was a vote for Mukesh Ambani.
AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal wrote an open letter to the Gujarat chief minister asking him to break his silence on the gas pricing controversy involving Ambani’s Reliance Industries. Since September 13, when Modi was nominated as prime minister, Ambani’s Reliance Group has pocketed more than $6bn. Interestingly, $1.3bn came within the first 24 hours of vote-counting.
Finally: The Man Booker Prize winner and fiction-writer Arundhati Roy argues: “Wealth has been concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. Moreover, these few corporations now run the country and, in some ways, run the political parties. They run the media.” She says it is the corporations that fund major parties, which end up doing their bidding. “We are really owned and run by a few corporations, who can shut India down when they want.” Modinomics is nothing but a mask for corporations. The real face of Modinomics is of course ugly. We have to wait to see – will there be a qualitative change in the average Indian’s lifestyle, or will Modinomics solely serve corporates, those who are more equal than others?
