How hypocritical can we get on the issue of growth! We have been mismeasuring the economic achievement of states and nations by using the wrong metric: Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – which is about grand averages and tells you precious little about the well-being of the average individual – and even while at it we won’t allow it to go untainted by personal prejudices.
Bihar and Madhya Pradesh are two states which have scripted stunning economic turnaround stories over the last few years. Both, not long ago, were basket cases of the Indian economy with little hope of economic revival. Now both states have been clocking GDP growth of over 10 percent consistently – Bihar’s average growth for the last five years is 10.67 percent while that of Madhya Pradesh is 10.26 percent.
Agricultural production has been at a record high in Madhya Pradesh while the macro- fundamentals of the economy in Bihar stay robust. Both are also well-placed in the Human Development Index. The men behind these success stories are Nitish Kumar in Bihar and Shivraj Singh Chouhan in MP. But for some reason the national media has been squeamish about acknowledging the spectacular achievement of the duo. While the talk is about economic development, the exemplar is still Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
His performance is by no means any less spectacular, but given the backdrop against which the other two states leaders have delivered, they certainly deserve more respect that they get. Gujarat was already a developed state when Modi took over and the architecture for economic activity in the state was always robust. This was never the case with the other two states.
Respect for nuances and objective analyses were never essential parts of our political and economic discourse. But in the case of Modi, the tendency to ignore nuances has gone to obscene levels.
The question here is, if a Modi model of economy is acceptable, why not the Nitish model or the Shivraj Chouhan model? Why are not we even prepared to discuss the models and their respective strengths and weaknesses?
Nitish has been insisting on the superiority of his own model for sometime now.
He claims it is more inclusive, more bottoms-up in approach and thus more relevant to all other Indian states with similar social and economic conditions. Modi’s model is actually the Gujarat model because it never originated with him. He has been doing a good job of maintaining a legacy, yet inclusion still remains an issue in the state. Nitish, on the other hand, could be credited with initiating a successful model.
Both models are based on different existential realities and both could be valid strategies for Indian conditions. So why are we in a hurry to dismiss one for the other? Notice the difference in the attention devoted to Modi’s success story and that of his peers; it’s easy to find how we are not ready to even hear out the other argument.
Here lies the inherent hypocrisy of the Indian intellectual culture. It’s apparent during television debates and economic discourse everywhere.
Modi, many of the experts in the media would like us to believe, represents the capitalist idea in its purest form. But capitalism in its crudest form is being dumped everywhere in the world.
There are serious questions on the efficacy of GDP as a measuring tool for the success of economies. Countries have been trying to mix that up with human development indicators to draw a complete picture of the health and sustainability of economies.
Interestingly, Modi’s economy – if you ignore the allegation of minority exclusion – is a good example of this. The same applies to Nitish. India as a country and Indian states are creating their own models where both capitalism and welfarism stay important.
Great experiments are at work in the country. Why not be patient with these?
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