The human brain, said Voltaire, has the power to make man find reasons to continue believing in what he wants to believe. The living laboratory of this is contemporary Indian politics with leaders stepping out of the cubbyholes of their minds to reveal their starry delusions. In the past week Indians have been treated to some riveting propositions with politicians putting up performances on India Talkies that challenge the very notion of alternate ideas and choice.
The decline in the economy is hardly overnight. Yet on Friday, the economist Prime Minister tells industry leaders that “critics focus on the experience of one bad year; this makes for good television but it is a distorted picture.” One bad year? India’s GDP has declined in 10 of 13 previous quarters (39 months). GDP growth has been sub-6 per cent in five of six quarters. The Prime Minister also holds that growth is higher in UPA than in NDA years. Is aspiration grounded in the past or in future potential? For the record, India’s current GDP rate is worse than the 1951 to 2012 average of 5-plus per cent.
The gloat about growth raises another conundrum. Consider this data from the Planning Commission: between 1999-2000 and 2004-05, employment in manufacturing grew from 44 million to 55.7 million. If growth was better and averaged 8 per cent under the UPA, why have jobs in manufacturing declined from 55.77 million to 50.74 million? Surely a growing economy should be adding jobs. A chart in the 12th Plan reveals another interesting factoid: between 1999-2000 and 2004-05, India added 60.70 jobs whereas between 2004-05 and 2009-10, it added only 2.76 million jobs. There is, of course, no explanation why growth is allowed to slide, why over $ 550 billion worth projects are stalled, why Posco, ArcelorMittal and others are pulling out of India, why Indian entrepreneurs are rushing to invest abroad.
The Prime Minister also states that poverty came down the most, and fastest, under the UPA. For starters, the estimation is under the old definition which has been challenged and which is now being studied by a new committee. Secondly if poverty has come down why is it that—ironically, in these very years India is sliding on vital parameters of hunger, malnutrition, infant mortality and overall Human Development Indicators? Does this mean growth was skewed and cornered by the higher income groups? So where does that leave the claims of inclusion? And if indeed poverty has come down what is the justification for covering 67 per cent of the populace under the food security ordinance?
The Prime Minister and the Congress have company in delusion. Rajnath Singh, President of the Bharatiya Janata Party, declares that the English language has caused a great loss to the country, blames it for many ills, and praises Sanskrit. Does praising of one demand denigration of another? Denials followed but the perception that will prevail is about—imposition of Hindi over Tamil Nadu and other southern states. The former lecturer of Physics would know of Congress’ rout in the sixties over the language issue. He also knows that India can’t have been a player in the global software market without the ‘English advantage’. This is the president of a party which has no presence in 10 states and a passing presence in south India. This is the party that recently lost in Karnataka, faded out in Tamil Nadu and never won a seat Kerala. Worse, BJP spin doctors are presenting this as helping the party in garnering a higher share of votes in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and other Hindi-speaking states.
This was followed by another episode. The only thing going for BJP is the projection of the Modi model. The Congress is at its most defensive when confronted with its record on corruption, governance and growth. It has since 2009 had a torrid time in dealing with a series of scandals and tackling the economy. Unsurprisingly it would much rather redraw the terms of engagement and locate the battle on issues where perception is the matrix and data cannot be deployed. In Brand Modi the BJP has an opportunity to confront the Congress and the UPA on its record in governance and growth and expand its influence. It is an issue that the middle class is most concerned about. In the south which accounts for nearly a fourth of the GDP and in states where voters often ‘caste’ their votes for identity outfits, the issue of income security could be a binding force.
But the potential of this has been lost in translation. Mumbai is plastered with posters of Narendra Modi declaring himself a “Hindu Nationalist”. This needs advertisement? Naturally the credibility of the governance plank came under scrutiny. Even as the posters were pulled down in a damage limitation exercise, typically, the spin doctors have gone on overdrive describing this as a “designed move” to consolidate Hindu votes. It hasn’t occurred to some people in the BJP that a large chunk of voters of Congress, SP, BSP and other major parties are Hindus who disagree with the party because they would rather not be dragged into this ghetto.
The national parties seem to prefer their delusions and ghettos—of sops, doles, castes, language and creed. It is time they snapped out of this cult of semantics to give Youngistan a real choice.
(About the Writer: Shankkar Aiyar is the author of Accidental India: A History of the Nation’s Passage through Crisis and Change.)
