Pratap Bhanu Mehta - Government as circus
During the second half
of UPA 2, the press, with some justification, created a frenzy of anxiety over
India’s future, especially its economic future. After two and a half years of
the Narendra Modi
government,
if the same standards of concern about India’s future were brought to bear on
the present government, what would the heightened expression of concern look
like? Why have the dramatic headlines that focus on worries of substance
disappeared?
The first headline
would be: Spectre of Stagnation. Despite the headline GDP growth number,
private investment has barely moved. In any other context, such tepid growth in
private investment would have had us screaming from the rooftops. At the end of
the day, this number tells you more about how the economy is doing and is
likely to do than almost any other number. Second, we used to joke that India
can grow despite the state. But the fact of the matter is that for the first
time in a decade, the share of public investment in projects under
implementation exceeds private investment. And this is likely to continue for
some time.
In short, we are
becoming an economy that is not growing despite the state; it is becoming even
more reliant on the state. The risks are that such an economy will need
constant pump priming by the government, creating all sorts of fiscal and
institutional distortions. Admittedly, the
government inherited a slew of problems. But even accounting for that, in any
other context, such tepid private investment, combined with weak IIP numbers
and job growth would have led to a great expression of economic anxiety.
The second headline
would have been: Botched Execution. The Modi government’s self-proclaimed
fabled execution capabilities have been severely dented by demonetisation. But
even apart from this, its execution capabilities are coming under serious
question. One of the better performing ministers in the government, who seems
candid and clears bottlenecks, Nitin Gadkari, had the
decency to admit that road building targets are way short of his ambitious
targets; in fact, they are at an embarrassing six kilometres per day for the
year. The mobilisation of private investment for infrastructure is stuck.
There
are modest successes in energy, on the renewables, but it would be hard to
argue that total capacity augmentation exceeds that of the UPA. Four flagship
programmes of the government are floundering: Swachh Bharat devolved into a gamed
construction project with little appreciable effect on the problem it was
designed to tackle; Clean Ganga is probably irrelevant, since you cannot
declare the prime minister to be like the Ganga and acknowledge that the river
is not clean. Smart Cities is
probably doing less for the health of cities than the distribution of buses
under JNNURM alone did for public transport.
City government reform is not even
on the agenda. Make in India is not much more than a slogan. Admittedly, these
are all long-term projects, and the government made unrealistic claims. But
that bombast was not, contrary to what we thought, a sign of ambition; it was a
sign of lack of thought about execution. Yes, a couple of programmes like Jan
Dhan and Aadhar have acquired great momentum, but it would be hard to argue
that aggregate execution capacities have increased, if you went ministry by
ministry. And execution is important, not just for growth. Because when
execution fails, the prospect of the state turning executioner in a literal
sense also rises.
The third headline
would have been: Hyper Arbitrary State. Let us be very clear. India needs the
rule of law. It needs sensible law, respect for law. The core institutions of
intelligent law enforcement are police, investigating agencies, prosecution and
judiciary. Ask yourself: Have the institutional capacities of any of these
increased for the better? In fact, this government’s enforcement imagination is
not about the rule of law; it is a very Seventies’ style view that societies can
be disciplined by arbitrary injections of fear every now and then. The
judiciary and the government are in a serious standoff; the investigating
agencies inspire no more confidence than before, and government is being
empowered in unprecedented ways to regulate and control the lives of
individuals.
Questions of
surveillance, privacy, the appropriateness of data-sharing, choice, are all by
the wayside; independent institutions that were our protection are being
gutted. The advocates of minimum government who excoriated the UPA for statism
have left that largest intrusion of the state, across a number of sectors, into
our lives unremarked. Is it all because we climbed a measly few places in that
ridiculous index of ease of doing business, while almost every other aspect of
our lives has become more statist? We have moved from arbitrariness to hyper
arbitrariness. The spectre of statism no longer elicits howls of protest; it
produces docility.
Even this government’s
core muscular claims on defence need critical scrutiny. I would have imagined
during the UPA, we would have run the following headlines: India besieged on
both ends (that is how Kashmir and Manipur would have been described). As
Sushant Singh pointed out in this paper, the number of army casualties on the
LoC has doubled this year. So much for the effects of surgical strikes.
During the UPA, there was perhaps a little exaggerated fear of embracing
America; in this regime, an almost whole-scale alignment towards American
interests is not even provoking a discussion.
Conditions that would
have led the press to take out its critical swords, scream Armageddon under the
UPA, now barely evoke a whisper.
This may be for three
reasons. First, 2004-2009 really spoilt us; we had gotten used to a high and
so, when the slowdown came, we were angrier. Now we have settled into an
adjustment with the usual muddling. Second, in the UPA, the government did not
speak, so we dug up our own assessments of different ministries. Now the
government constantly speaks, and we take their briefs. Third, this
government’s modus operandi is constant distraction: It will continually
provide you with headlines, or a circus that will make sure your attention is
diverted from the fundamental questions of institutional health or economic governance.
Our deeper sin is not
that we have caved in, but we have fallen for the circus. Governance by
distraction and hubris is a recipe for long-term economic Armageddon. But it is
a strange alchemy when we no longer fear that prospect.
Posts on demonetisation
Nation-wide public tragedy unreported in India's mainstream media - click to see glimpses of ordinary Indians' reactions to note-ban crisis and please circulate - Scroll down the contents of the link above for clips of mass unrest in Indian society from shopkeepers & artisans to workers & peasants. Information about this assault on the lives of millions is being withheld by the mass media
CRPF Man who survived 5 Bullets shoots himself after failing to withdraw cash from Bank
CRPF Man who survived 5 Bullets shoots himself after failing to withdraw cash from Bank
