India's ruling Congress party’s election manifesto has put the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in a tight spot, so much so that its prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi, was forced to dub the document as a joke.
The Congress has promised to deliver a form of governance that will be fiscally responsible but at the same time socially progressive. Understandably, for Modi — a votary of trickle-down economics — the rights-based legislative framework that the Congress has introduced and proposes to expand in the future comes as a huge challenge. The far-rightist BJP, which continues its enthusiastic support for neoliberal economic policies that has created an unsustainable model of concentration of wealth in the hands of few, is struggling to offer a convincing counter-narrative to the nation.
Surely, Modi’s governance model, which encourages wealthy elites to co-opt political power, has very few takers in India because it is based on an economic theory that is being seen as the greatest broken promise of our lifetime after the publication of a sensational Oxfam report. Titled “Working for the Few: Political capture and economic inequality,” the report brings to light the harrowing reality of the world’s richest 85 individuals possessing wealth equivalent to that of 3.5 billion people. Such privileged and influential people, Oxfam says, often manipulate the democratic system to install a favorable government, as is being reflected in the Indian corporate sector’s unabashed Modi slant. Modi in fact has doled out more undue privileges to the industry than anybody else at the expense of huge loss to the state exchequer throughout his stint as the chief minister. It is another matter altogether that this extra-constitutional act has remained largely hidden from public glare.
Gujarat government sources reveal that Modi puts special emphasis on eliminating possible exposure of corrupt practices by throttling dissentient voices or threatening and smearing potential whistleblowers. Officials conversant with Modi’s autocratic functioning confirm that he is not bothered about the worsening social indicators of the state and more obsessed with creating a Modi cult. But then those entrusted with Modi’s image makeover has failed to keep under wraps the dark underbelly of Modi’s Gujarat. The policies, which BJP wants to extrapolate nationally, have actually taken Gujarat backward. Hidden beneath the publicity blitzkrieg lies the real face of Gujarat — a state suffering from the policy failure of Modi’s government. Despite all the big propaganda, the fact is, Gujarat’s socioeconomic infrastructure remains in tatters. Gujarat, in fact, under Modi’s long uninterrupted governance has fared poorly in Human Development Index, poverty alleviation and prevention of infant mortality especially children under 5 years.
Farmers in Modi’s Gujarat are a terrorized lot with the government aggressively implementing a pro-corporation policy at the expense of the agriculturists. Though the Supreme Court of India might have patted Modi’s back for the apparent transparency in land acquisition process, the shadowy coercion technique involved in it is hardly exposed and hence remained outside the knowledge of the judiciary. Farmers taking their lives due to agrarian distress in Gujarat are not entitled for compensation and the death data is doctored if it is debt-driven. Even tribal lands in Gujarat have been unfairly usurped under the very nose of Modi’s administration — often in the name of token symbolism like construction of statue. Also, Modi and his trumpeters have effectively shifted the spotlight from an alarming trend of joblessness witnessed in Gujarat by projecting the Congress as the real villain. Modi does not want the world to know that a high percentage of Gujarat’s working population is employed in the informal sector and that too with pathetically low wages, poor working conditions and virtually no social protection. In reality, the average wage rate in Gujarat is among the lowest in India, leading to labor discontent.
In fact, Modi has no qualms in bending the rules to create a winner-takes-all situation for selected business-elites even if it means abetting inequalities. And the BJP proposes to ape this model blindly at the national level though a global outlook report prepared by the World Economic Forum has warned in no uncertain term that rising inequality is undermining social stability and compromising global security simultaneously. Even President Barack Obama, presiding over the world’s foremost capitalist economy has prioritized elimination of inequality on war footing. Unfortunately, the BJP under Modi’s leadership has a one point agenda of mocking any effort to provide universal health care, quality education to all and social protection for the underprivileged. Modi’s Gujarat finds itself among the industrial growth laggard states (22nd) in India and the conditions of urban and rural poor have turned from bad to worst in the past decade with people being forced to live in subhuman conditions. The slums in Gujarat are one of the worst in India and a majority of rural poor continues to defecate in the open despite tall political promises.
Now that the bubble has started bursting, especially after Uma Bharti’s explosive video footage went viral, drumming up support for an exposed Modi becomes all the more difficult. Besides, the BJP has a gloomy track record in national governance with the GDP, employment and industrial growth rate and public investment plummeting during Vajpayee’s premiership compared to previous years. Modi’s economic extremism therefore is very unlikely to sway the electorate in a welfare state like India.
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