Saaf niyat, not really Mr Modi

Possibly the most curious thing about the Congress party’s defence of its scam-tainted tenure as it led the United Progressive Alliance to its humiliating loss in 2014 was the notion that it merely failed to convince the general public about its achievements. In other words, there was nothing wrong with the way it ruled or its decisions per se, and that it just lost out to the public relations (PR) drive of the Opposition parties, in particular, the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party. It was curious because it was both true and untrue. True, it lost the PR battle. Untrue, because it had no legs to stand on. In a manner of speaking, and with due apologies to Napoléon Bonaparte, Mr Modi found the prime ministership of India lying in the gutter and simply picked it up on his way to New Delhi.

Four years into his term, Modi Sarkar, as the National Democratic Alliance government at the Centre hopes it would be characterised, seems to have shut its policy shop. The Modi Presidency, as it were, is over. The calling off of Air India’s disinvestment on the pretext that there isn’t enough time for reform is an obvious admission that substantive issues will now remain on the back-burner till a new government takes over. For the next 12 months then, it is the PR drive that will be centre stage. Presumably, Modi Sarkar also thinks that it has done a stellar job already and just wants to ensure it doesn’t repeat the Congress’ mistake — that is losing the perception battle. So, you and I cannot listen to two songs on the radio without being told what Modi Sarkar was all about. 

To be sure, we are told it was about two things: Saaf niyat and sahi vikas. If I must suffer the advertising, I might as well dwell a little more. So, starting with this column, each month, I intend to evaluate some of Modi Sarkar’s key decisions and test them on these two metrics. 

Niyat refers to intentions. Saaf refers to clean, transparent — in the sense of having nothing to hide. The central thrust being that this government does not talk with a forked tongue, is not duplicitous and its actions are good-intentioned. Sahi means correct, vikas is, obviously, growth. The first striking aspect is the fact that Modi Sarkar, which came to power with the unadulterated promise of vikas, has put niyat ahead of vikas as it prepares for re-election. To my mind, this is a tacit acceptance that there wasn’t enough growth to harp on anyway — its growth record, despite more conducive global conditions, is not really better than the UPA’s. As such, it makes sense to just pivot on the notion that this government, at the very least, was better on intentions. 

To convince people of this, Prime Minister Modi has, we are told, led from the front to curb corruption in public life and bring about transparency. The demonetisation of 86 per cent of the currency was one of the key moves in this direction. The PM and his spokesperson tried to convince the country that demonetisation would solve everything from cross-border terrorism to home-grown dissidence, and from black money’s preponderance in public life to lax financial inclusion. All those arguments lie in tatters today. 

Still, the government continues to quote demonetisation as one of the key measures in its fight against corruption. The excuse on the street is: So what if Mr Modi slipped up on demonetisation, at least he tried to do something about corruption. One could have been large-hearted about this and agreed to this spiel had it not been such an obnoxious stunt to pull on the people of India. Actually, the events, especially since demonetisation, show repeatedly that Modi Sarkar does not have saaf niyat about removing corruption from public life.

The murkiest aspect of corruption in public life is the way our political parties are funded. That’s because political parties enjoy certain tax exemption on the funds they receive. Modi Sarkar has — while it ordered everyone to share their biometric information for the flimsiest of issues — done absolutely nothing to clean up political funding norms. Of course, on the face of it, it has reduced the maximum quantum of money that can be donated in cash without attracting audit enquiries from Rs 20,000 to Rs 2,000. In effect, it has only meant that a political party would have to generate more fake receipts for the same amount of cash donations. 

Then, Modi Sarkar passed a retrospective change, going back all the way up to 1976, in the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) to ensure that both the BJP and the Congress evade prosecution in the Delhi High Court case. There was also the elaborate sham of launching electoral bonds. The truth is there is nothing in the electoral bonds mechanism that improves the non-existent transparency about the funding of a political party.Not to mention that the BJP, despite being now the leading political party in the country, shied away from coming under the Right to Information ambit.

The questions on the intent of this government do not stop here. But it is clear that on the issue of removing corruption from public life, this government’s niyat is not saaf, notwithstanding an endless stream of PR drivel.