The next three years

Most key indicators — from economic ones to those related to human development and society — suggest that the first seven years of Narendra Modi’s prime ministership have fallen short on achievement as defined by non-ideological, non-partisan parameters. The question is whether it is possible to imagine a different future for India in the remaining years of his second term. Doing so would involve readjusting the dynamics of policy-making from the elevation of grand ambition to mundane ground realities. At the top of this to-do list would be meaningful moves to address the hunger, poverty, and joblessness that are ravaging India. Focusing on job-creating infrastructure investment (including, hopefully, on health care) and making funds available for the small and medium sectors will work but only in the longer term. Right now, large swathes of the Indian people are on the edge of destitution, a tragedy that urgently demands imaginative direct income and nutrition support plans beyond limited food relief and rural job guarantee programmes.

This would be a bare minimum agenda before addressing the broader societal and economic issues that confront India. Much of this would entail taking a step back rather than extra exertion. Outside of those who support Mr Modi’s party ideology, it is clear to everyone else that Indian society is more polarised than ever before. The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) marked the most overt expression of this aggressive majoritarianism, causing riots in Delhi not seen since 1984. Pulling back the CAA would clear the air, not just by not notifying it but also by refraining from sending states CAA-type directives on citizenship policies and scrapping the sinister National Citizenship Register plan. The corollary to this is to ensure respect for civil liberties. The mobilisation of the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, an Emergency-era law in 21st century guise, to incarcerate critics indefinitely on spurious grounds and without recourse to basic civil rights of habeas corpus and to treat them with gratuitous cruelty (cue Stan Swamy) do not reflect the ideals of a nation confident of itself. Nor does the uber-sensitivity to criticism that has caused the regime to expend considerable governmental time and energy at the height of the second wave of the pandemic on countering criticism.

Given that the Bharatiya Janata Party professes faith in democracy it must recognise that criticism, however unfair, is an integral element of democratic politics. So is an administration that allows the institutions of democracy — courts, the police, enforcement agencies, civil society, the press, and academia — to function independently and within the boundaries of law rather than government diktat. As the ugly face-off in West Bengal demonstrates, a similar non-partisan respect must be extended to India’s federal institutions too. On the economic front, rising joblessness and sliding economic growth wrought by demonetisation and the rushed implementation of goods and services tax have been compounded by the unforeseen disaster of the pandemic. But the government’s response has been to resort to protectionism, from high tariff barriers to complicated incentive schemes. Aatmanirbhar may have electoral resonance but as an economic policy it has served India poorly in the past and is unlikely to transform the country into the dynamic competitive manufacturing powerhouse it aspires to be. To go back to the future, therefore, India urgently needs to unwind first.