Letters: One-sided analysis

Apropos Arvind Subramanian’s article “Is the Modi miracle overrated?” (January 23), judging the performance of a state like Gujarat solely by the “own tax revenues as a share of its gross domestic product” is not good economics. It does not take into account many other important parameters. Writers like Mihir Sharma and Kanika Datta have written in this paper about Modi’s achievements in Gujarat after taking into consideration several factors, and not just one. One may or may not agree with their conclusions but they are comprehensive. But Subramanian’s write-up is only based on one factor. He has mentioned casually a couple of other factors but without data or analysis. For instance, he has mentioned child malnutrition without providing figures. Bibek Debroy pointed out in his famous study on Gujarat that the figures of child malnutrition are old and relate to 2005-06. The other parameters the writer has not considered are: the reduction in the number of people below the poverty line; the Gini coefficient, which indicates inequality of income; the human development coefficient; school dropout rate; teacher-student ratio; infant mortality rate; development of small and medium industry; agricultural productivity; and the share of people in industry compared to those in agriculture.

Sukumar Mukhopadhyay New Delhi

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