Unemployment in Gujarat Model

 

Zafar Sareshwala: From Critic to Modi Fan

 

Deciphering Modi's Communication Skills

 

Gujaratification of India

 From The Economist

Agashiye, a popular restaurant in Ahmedabad, serves only one thing: Gujarati thali. But the dish contains multitudes: curries, pulses, veggies and sweets, along with flatbreads, rice, salad, pickles, poppadums and more. Its fans say the thali strikes the perfect balance. But that depends how it is consumed. Presented with a plate featuring greens next to fried delights and thick, sweet cream, few diners choose to gorge on cabbage.

So it is with Gujarat’s strangely uneven development record. Ruled by Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (bjp) since 1998, India’s westernmost state is a great success story overall. It is the sixth-richest state and accounts for 30% of exports. Its economy grew at an average annual rate of 11% between 2011 and 2021, the fastest in the country.

It is this record that Mr Modi, after 13 years running Gujarat, stressed when he sought India’s top job in 2014. Just as the thali contains a balance of fibre, protein and carbohydrates, his “Gujarat model” was said to be a perfect mix of good education, jobs, higher incomes and a “better life”. After a decade of welfarism, state meddling and graft under the Congress party, many Indians were hungry for it.

Critics of Mr Modi pointed to communal riots on his watch in 2002 that left over 1,000 Gujaratis dead, most of them Muslims. They also noted that the state was pro-business long before he showed up. And that Gujarat’s social indicators, which track changes in the lives of the poor, were far from perfect—indeed much worse than its economic ones. That seemed like a bad lookout for a country with more than twice as many very poor people as any other. Sure enough, eight years and two crushing election victories later, the hopes and fears for Mr Modi’s economic stewardship have largely been realised. He and his party have taken the Gujarat model India-wide.

In the state of 62m people, where the bjp won its seventh straight election this week, social indicators still trail economic ones. On a development index that accounts for life expectancy, education and income, Gujarat ranks 21st out of 36 states and territories. It is in the bottom half of states for underage marriage, child stunting, infant mortality, and school and college enrolment. Last year its gdp per head matched Tamil Nadu’s, but its share of people living in poverty, at 14%, was nearly four times bigger (see chart 1).

This reflects the Hindu nationalists’ priorities. Gujarat’s social spending is the lowest of all Indian states. It also directs a smaller share of its total expenditure to rural development and a larger portion to cities than the state average. Many of its rural districts lack basics such as secondary schools as a result. Meanwhile, its cities are thriving, as they like to illustrate with shiny new building projects. When the national government solicited proposals for urban-renewal plans in the early 2000s, most cities in Gujarat wanted funds for flyovers, says Himani Baxi of Pandit Deendayal Energy University in Gandhinagar, the state capital. Just one city proposed building an unglamorous but necessary sewage-treatment plant.

After a number of false starts, India’s economy is also booming. On December 6th the World Bank upgraded its forecast for growth this year from 6.5% to 6.9%. If that is not as fast as Gujarat tends to grow, it is faster than any other big economy. Mr Modi’s highly publicised new mantra is “Together, for everyone’s growth, with everyone’s trust”. And ambitious infrastructure projects such as highways and digitisation are, as in Gujarat, a prominent part of his plan. Most large cities now have metro lines; over 10,000km of highways are being added each year, twice the rate the previous Congress-led government managed. The infrastructure push is helping households, too. Many more now have access to bank accounts and clean fuel. Internet penetration is rising rapidly.

bjp rule has been much less successful at improving Indians’ poor health and woeful education. Child-mortality rates are falling, but patchily. More than a third of children under five are stunted, a higher rate than in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. In 2018 around half of all rural children in fifth grade could not read to second-grade levels. And after two years of school closures during the pandemic, the situation is unlikely to have improved.

These failures, again, reflect the bjp’s choices. It has been more generous to India’s poor than its government in Gujarat; the percentage of spending given to welfare schemes such as food and cooking-fuel subsidies is in line with the long-term average. Yet the Modi government is devoting a much smaller portion of India’s bumper tax revenues to social spending, including health care and education, than its predecessor (see chart 2). In 2018-19 government spending on health represented 3.2% of gdp, down from 3.9% the year before it came to power. Spending on education, at 3.1%, is far below its target of 6%.

The poorest bits of the country are missing out most, largely because India’s growth is so unequally distributed. According to official figures, unemployment in Gujarat is 2.9%; in Uttar Pradesh (up), a poor northern state of 240m people, it is 7.1%. Yet the bjp has suffered little or no blowback in such places. This year it became the first party to win a second consecutive majority in up since 1985. Why?

A lot of the answer is its Hindu chauvinism. In Gujarat, up and elsewhere, the bjp has successfully presented itself as a defender of high-caste Hindus, while mollifying the populous lower castes with hate speech against Muslims and just enough welfare. Yet it also seems that Indians like its spending priorities far more than would once have been imagined.

The long-abysmal state of public services—and proliferation of private alternatives—have downgraded Indians’ expectations of them. Less than a third rely on public health care. In an international survey in 2016, just 46% of Indians agreed that “the primary responsibility for providing school education rested with government”, the lowest of any country polled. Meanwhile, the bjp’s infrastructure projects, and relentless efforts to put Mr Modi’s imprimatur on them, have made the projects and prime minister alike powerful symbols of national progress.

As anyone who has tackled a thali knows, to eat is to choose. And so it is to govern. Not every element of the Hindu-nationalist development policy is good for Indians. But it is fuelling their growth and keeping them coming back for more. Mr Modi’s approval rating, at around 77%, may be the highest of any major world leader. His prospects of winning a third parliamentary majority in 2024 appear exceptionally strong.

SC: The Gujarat Govt not responsible for 2002 riots

 

"I made two mistakes: judging V P Singh and Narendra Modi" Arun Shourie

 

Gujarat 2002, Delhi 1984 are similar to Kashmir Pandit Situation

 

19 years after the Godhra carnage

 

Did the Solicitor General of India lie to its Supreme Court?

Give Us Kerala Model Over Gujarat Model, Any Day

Ramachandra Guha in NDTV

When, towards the end of the first decade of the present century, Narendra Modi began speaking frequently about something he called the 'Gujarat Model', it was the second time a state of the Indian Union had that grand, self-promoting, suffix added to its name. The first was Kerala. The origins of the term 'Kerala Model' go back to a study done in the 1970s by economists associated with the Centre for Development Studies in Thiruvananthapuram. This showed that when it came to indices of population (as in declining birth rates), education (as in remarkably high literacy for women) and health (as in lower infant mortality and higher life expectancy), this small state in a desperately poor country had done as well - and sometimes better - than parts of Europe and North America.

Boosted to begin with by economists and demographers, Kerala soon came in for praise from sociologists and political scientists. The former argued that caste and class distinctions had radically diminished in Kerala over the course of the 20th century; the latter showed that, when it came to implementing the provisions of the 73rd and 74th Amendments to the Constitution, Kerala was ahead of other states. More power had been devolved to municipalities and panchayats than elsewhere in India.

Success, as John F. Kennedy famously remarked, has many fathers (while failure is an orphan). When these achievements of the state of Kerala became widely known, many groups rushed to claim their share of the credit. The communists, who had been in power for long stretches, said it was their economic radicalism that did it. Followers of Sri Narayana Guru (1855-1928) said it was the egalitarianism promoted by that great social reformer which led to much of what followed. Those still loyal to the royal houses of Travancore and Cochin observed that when it came to education, and especially girls' education, their Rulers were more progressive than Maharajas and Nawabs elsewhere. The Christian community of Kerala also chipped in, noting that some of the best schools, colleges, and hospitals were run by the Church. It was left to that fine Australian historian of Kerala and India, Robin Jeffrey, to critically analyse all these claims, and demonstrate in what order and what magnitude they contributed. His book Politics, Women and Wellbeing remains the definitive work on the subject.

Such were the elements of the 'Kerala Model'. What did the 'Gujarat Model' that Narendra Modi began speaking of, c. 2007, comprise? Mr Modi did not himself ever define it very precisely. But there is little doubt that the coinage itself was inspired and provoked by what had preceded it. The Gujarat Model would, Mr Modi was suggesting, be different from, and better than, the Kerala Model. Among the noticeable weaknesses of the latter was that it did not really encourage private enterprise. Marxist ideology and trade union politics both inhibited this. On the other hand, the Vibrant Gujarat Summits organized once every two years when Mr Modi was Chief Minister were intended precisely to attract private investment.

This openness to private capital was, for Mr Modi's supporters, undoubtedly the most attractive feature of what he was marketing as the 'Gujarat Model'. It was this that brought to him the support of big business, and of small business as well, when he launched his campaign for Prime Minister. Young professionals, disgusted by the cronyism and corruption of the UPA regime, flocked to his support, seeing him as a modernizing Messiah who would make India an economic powerhouse.

With the support of these groups, and many others, Narendra Modi was elected Prime Minister in May 2014.

There were other aspects of the Gujarat Model that Narendra Modi did not speak about, but which those who knew the state rather better than the Titans of Indian industry were perfectly aware of. These included the relegation of minorities (and particularly Muslims) to second-class status; the centralization of power in the Chief Minister and the creation of a cult of personality around him; attacks on the independence and autonomy of universities; curbs on the freedom of the press; and, not least, a vengeful attitude towards critics and political rivals.

These darker sides of the Gujarat Model were all played down in Mr Modi's Prime Ministerial campaign. But in the six years since he has been in power at the Centre, they have become starkly visible. The communalization of politics and of popular discourse, the capturing of public institutions, the intimidation of the press, the use of the police and investigating agencies to harass opponents, and, perhaps above all, the deification of the Great Leader by the party, the Cabinet, the Government, and the Godi Media - these have characterized the Prime Ministerial tenure of Narendra Modi. Meanwhile, the most widely advertised positive feature of the Gujarat Model before 2014 has proved to be a dud. Far from being a free-market reformer, Narendra Modi has demonstrated that he is an absolute statist in economic matters. As an investment banker who once enthusiastically supported him recently told me in disgust: "Narendra Modi is our most left-wing Prime Minister ever - he is even more left-wing than Jawaharlal Nehru".

Which brings me back to the Kerala Model, which the Gujarat Model sought to replace or supplant. Talked about a great deal in the 1980s and 1990s, in recent years, the term was not much heard in policy discourse any more. It had fallen into disuse, presumably consigned to the dustbin of history. The onset of COVID-19 has now thankfully rescued it, and indeed brought it back to centre-stage. For in how it has confronted, tackled, and tamed the COVID crisis, Kerala has once again showed itself to be a model for India - and perhaps the world.

There has been some excellent reporting on how Kerala flattened the curve. It seems clear that there is a deeper historical legacy behind the success of this state. Because the people of Kerala are better educated, they have followed the practices in their daily life least likely to allow community transmission. Because they have such excellent health care, if people do test positive, they can be treated promptly and adequately. Because caste and gender distinctions are less extreme than elsewhere in India, access to health care and medical information is less skewed. Because decentralization of power is embedded in systems of governance, panchayat heads do not have to wait for a signal from a Big Boss before deciding to act. There are two other features of Kerala's political culture that have helped them in the present context; its top leaders are generally more grounded and less imperious than elsewhere, and bipartisanship comes more easily to the state's politicians.

The state of Kerala is by no means perfect. While there have been no serious communal riots for many decades, in everyday life there is still some amount of reserve in relations between Hindus, Christians and Muslims. Casteism and patriarchy have been weakened, but by no means eliminated. The intelligentsia still remain unreasonably suspicious of private enterprise, which will hurt the state greatly in the post-COVID era, after remittances from the Gulf have dried up.

For all their flaws, the state and people of Kerala have many things to teach us, who live in the rest of India. We forgot about their virtues in the past decade, but now these virtues are once more being discussed, to both inspire and chastise us. The success of the state in the past and in the present have rested on science, transparency, decentralization, and social equality. These are, as it were, the four pillars of the Kerala Model. On the other hand, the four pillars of the Gujarat Model are superstition, secrecy, centralization, and communal bigotry. Give us the first over the second, any day.

Why is there demonizing for Hindus and Modi Ji - Bilatakalluf Discussion with Tahir Gora

The Sarkari Mussalman - Interview with Gen. Zameeruddin Shah

The chilling death of Judge Loya and the discharge of Amit Shah

Why bhakti in politics is bad for democracy

Ramachandra Guha in The Hindustan Times


Back in 2005, a knowledgeable Gujarati journalist wrote of how ‘Narendra Modi thinks a detergent named development will wash away the memory of 2002’. While focusing on new infrastructure and industrial projects in his state, the then chief minister of Gujarat launched what the journalist called ‘a massive self-publicity drive’, publishing calendars, booklets and posters where his own photograph appeared prominently alongside words and statistics speaking of Gujarat’s achievements under his leadership. ‘Modi has made sure that in Gujarat no one can escape noticing him,’ remarked the journalist.

Since May 2014, this self-publicity drive has been extended to the nation as a whole. In fact, the process began before the general elections, when, through social media and his speeches, Narendra Modi successfully projected himself as the sole and singular alternative to a (visibly) corrupt UPA regime. The BJP, a party previously opposed to ‘vyakti puja’, succumbed to the power of Modi’s personality. Since his swearing-in as Prime Minister, the government has done what the party did before it: totally subordinated itself to the will, and occasionally the whim, of a single individual.

Hero-worship is not uncommon in India. Indeed, we tend to excessively venerate high achievers in many fields. Consider the extraordinarily large and devoted fan following of Sachin Tendulkar and Lata Mangeshkar. These fans see their icons as flawless in a way fans in other countries do not. In America, Bob Dylan has many admirers but also more than a few critics. The same is true of the British tennis player Andy Murray. But in public discourse in India, criticism of Sachin and Lata is extremely rare. When offered, it tends to be met with vituperative abuse, not by rational or reasoned rebuttal.

The hero-worship of sportspeople is merely silly. But the hero-worship of politicians is inimical to democracy. In the 19th and 20th centuries, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu were epicentres of progressive social reform, whose activists promoted caste and gender equality, rational thinking, and individual rights. Yet in more recent years, Maharashra has seen the cult of Bal Thackeray, Tamil Nadu the cult of J Jayalalithaa. In each case, the power of the State was (in Jayalalithaa’s case still is) put in service of this personality cult, with harassment and intimidation of critics being common.

However, at a nation-wide level the cult of Narendra Modi has had only one predecessor — that of Indira Gandhi. Thus now, as then, ruling party politicians demand that citizens see the Prime Minister as embodying not just the party or the government, but the nation itself. Millions of devotees on social media (as well as quite a few journalists) have succumbed to the most extreme form of hero-worship. More worryingly, one senior cabinet minister has called Narendra Modi a Messiah. A chief minister has insinuated that anyone who criticises the Prime Minister’s policies is anti-national. Meanwhile, as in Indira Gandhi’s time, the government’s publicity wing, as well as AIR and Doordarshan, works overtime to broadcast the Prime Minister’s image and achievements.

While viewing the promotion of this cult of Narendra Modi, I have been reminded of two texts by long-dead thinker-politicians, both (sadly) still relevant. The first is an essay published by Jawaharlal Nehru in 1937 under the pen-name of ‘Chanakya’. Here Nehru, referring to himself in the third person (as Modi often does now), remarked: ‘Jawaharlal cannot become a fascist. Yet he has all the makings of a dictator in him — a vast popularity, a strong will directed to a well-defined purpose, energy, pride, organisational capacity, ability, hardness, and, with all his love of the crowd, an intolerance of others and a certain contempt for the weak and the inefficient.’

Nehru was here issuing a warning to himself. Twelve years later, in his remarkable last speech to the Constituent Assembly, BR Ambedkar issued a warning to all Indians, when, invoking John Stuart Mill, he asked them not ‘to lay their liberties at the feet of even a great man, or to trust him with powers which enable him to subvert their institutions’. There was ‘nothing wrong’, said Ambedkar, ‘in being grateful to great men who have rendered life-long services to the country. But there are limits to gratefulness.’ He worried that in India, ‘Bhakti or what may be called the path of devotion or hero-worship, plays a part in its politics unequalled in magnitude by the part it plays in the politics of any other country in the world. Bhakti in religion may be a road to the salvation of the soul. But in politics, Bhakti or hero-worship is a sure road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship.’

These remarks uncannily anticipated the cult of Indira Gandhi and the Emergency. As I have written in these columns before, Indian democracy is now too robust to be destroyed by a single individual. But it can still be severely damaged. That is why this personality cult of Narendra Modi must be challenged (and checked) before it goes much further.

Later this week we shall observe the 60th anniversary of BR Ambedkar’s death. Some well-meaning (and brave) member of the Prime Minister’s inner circle should bring Ambedkar’s speech of 1949 to his attention. And perhaps Nehru’s pseudonymous article of 1937 too.

Hype, Hypocrisy And Hooch

R K Misra in Outlook India

Gujarat and its 'model' have been the toast of the Indian season ever since its Chief Minister, Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister in 2014.This includes its liquor prohibition policy which has adherents like Bihar now where Nitish Kumar came to power after knocking the wind out of Modi's sails!

Billowing in the political clouds ever since, are propounded perceptions of a 'dry' India. Kumar could do with a closer look at adversary Modi's 'model' state before giving wings to his national vision.

Proud and boastful of the fact that it has been the only state in the country which was born 'dry' and continues to remain so till date, Gujarat's much hyped liquor 'totalitarianism' took a humpty-dumpty like fall last week when over 20 people died after consuming hooch near Surat. What has now become a standard drill after decades of practice, is in place. Newly anointed Chief Minister Vijay Rupani is making all the right noises. Top cops and district heads-transferred, smaller fry suspended. The anti-terrorist squad (ATS) chief took charge of investigations. A three-man top cop panel headed by additional director general of police (ADGP), looked into the matter and submitted its report to the state home department head. Within 24 hours over a thousand country liquor cases registered. Carton loads are being seized at entry checkpoints into the state. A full blooded search for the culprit methanol is under way. Blah, blah, blah and the farce goes on.

Consumption or possession of liquor without a valid permit is a non-bailable offence in the state. A person arrested on either count has to be produced in court to be bailed out. And yet it oozes Bacchus brew from every nook and cranny of its ample frame.

Booze, as the upwardly mobile call it, is lucrative business and according to conservative estimates, a Rs 30,000 crore annual turnover, pure black money spewing industry. While Prime Minister Modi may have pulled out all the stops to unearth Indian black money stashed abroad, his decade and a quarter year stint as chief minister of the state, failed to dent the business. In fact, to be fair to him, no chief minister who held office in the state was ever able to stem the flow.

The business has three components. At the bottom of the pyramid is the poor man's drink--hooch, lattha or moonshine. Then follows the desi or country liquor which is the preferred drink of rural Gujarat followed by brewery liquor at the apex (rum, whisky, gin, vodka etc). Hooch is the preferred drink of the urban labour class while 'desi' distilled, largely for captive consumption in villages, ranks safer and a notch higher. The fruit liquor 'mahua' ranks in this category. With a consumer base of the middle and affluent class in cities and towns, Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) as brewery made liquor is called in official parlance, holds sway. Country liquor is a cottage industry but brewery liquor flows into the state from MP, Rajasthan, Maharashtra even Punjab and Haryana.

Let's take the case of Gujarat's biggest city Ahmedabad. A network of about 1000 bootleggers sell anywhere between 1.5 to2 lakh litres of moonshine per day. Women outnumber men in this business. This is besides the IMFL business where the brand of your choice is home delivered to you. The trade is tech-savvy and 'whats app' and other suchn mobile applications come in handy. Surat is reported to guzzle 50,000 litres per day and almost 70 per cent of the 18,000 villages in the state brew their own country liquor. All major cities report high consumption and rural areas are no exception. There are 61,000 health permit holders in the state and worth of the average daily consumption of alcohol to permit holders is put at around Rs 75 lakhs.

No bootlegger can operate in Gujarat without police connivance. At every 'point' of the operation, negotiations have to be done with the cop for a certain amount of money and this goes right up to the top and from there to the political top brass. The cops may be sloppy in policing but would be the envy of management experts in planning and distribution of ill-gotten spoils.

Thus it is the huge amount of unadulterated black money greasing the administrative-political system in Gujarat that ensures a high decibel sound and light show only for the benefit of the masses with little or no follow-up action. Take the case of the 2009 hooch tragedy in Ahmedabad where 150 people lost their lives. Modi, then the chief minister, made all the appropriate noises. A Commission of Inquiry was instituted with former High Court judge K M Mehta as the chairman. The panel submitted its report in 2011 and there has been pin drop silence thereafter. The Gujarat Vidhan Sabha was quick to amend the pertinent act provisioning for even death penalty for those convicted in spurious liquor cases. The Bill was cleared by the then Governor Dr Kamala Beniwal. Not a single person has got life imprisonment thereafter, let alone terminal punishment.

The whole business of prohibition in Gujarat is a big charade in which everyone is happy and the only ones who stand to lose out are the people. Gujarat is soggy wet so those who want to drink, get enough of it but for a price. The cop is happy, he gets his cut and the politician in power more so because he gets a fair share as well besides the rip off from transfers and postings by playing favourites. Right from the sub-inspector to the DGP, the transfers are all at the behest of the Home department and the politicians who preside over it. The bootlegger is happy because he still manages to make money for himself despite all the pricks and cuts. It is only the honest tax payer who gets fobbed because the state loses a huge amount of money in excise and allied duties. Never mind this common man, he was in any case, born to bear the burden of the cross. Moonshine for the earthy, sunshine for the dirty.

India is more sensitive now, not more intolerant

Swaminathan Anklesaria Aiyer in the Times of India

Narendra Modi said in London that “India will not tolerate intolerance”. Secular critics jeered, since the BJP had raised the communal temperature during the Bihar election. Over 50 writers have returned national awards in protest against intolerance. They cite the Dadri beef lynching, murder of three prominent writers, and the ink attack on Sudheendra Kulkarni.

But it’s fiction to pretend that India used to be tolerant and has turned intolerant today. Intolerance has actually diminished substantially. Nothing can compare with the communal killings at Partition in 1947. Communal riots have continued with sickening regularity since then, but diminished in recent years, with the notable exception of 2002.

Ambedkar said violence against dalits was the worst of all. The Indian Constitution banned caste discrimination, yet caste violence remained embedded in society. Dalits could be attacked, raped, killed and humiliated at will, with impunity, by upper castes. This was also true, to a lesser extent, of other backward castes. Villages did not have riots, yet their very ethos was based on the most oppressive threat of caste violence. Fortunately, caste discrimination has fallen gradually, though it remains a harsh reality. The last two decades have seen the rise of almost 4,000 dalit millionaire businessmen, something unthinkable in the past.

Modi will never be forgiven by many for the 2002 Gujarat riots. But JS Bandukwala, the Muslim professor who barely escaped mob murder, told me that the 1969 Gujarat riots were worse. Yet the then Congress chief minister did not resign or become a social pariah. Regional newspapers relegated many of the 1969 incidents to inside pages.

Why? What has changed? The answer is the rise of private TV. This has brought the awfulness of communal violence into every household in every language. In 1969, there was no TV. All India Radio had a radio monopoly. The government deliberately played down the riots, to try and reduce communal tension. Newspapers those days had shoestring budgets. Reporters did not rush from all corners of India to Gujarat, or go into every affected town. Most newspapers depended on briefings from the home ministry, and co-operated with government pleas to play down killings, to douse communal tensions. No photos were published of the blood and gore. Newspapers avoided saying “Hindu” or “Muslim,” and just said “people of another community”.

Media reportage was stronger during the Babri Masjid agitation. But there was no private TV in 1992 to expose the gore and violence of the masjid destruction, or the horrific post-masjid riots.

By the 2002 riots in Gujarat, a media revolution had occurred. Private TV channels with ample resources sent reporters to every riot site. They competed in exposing communal hate and gore. Far from hiding the identity of communities, TV highlighted the Hindu-Muslim divide starkly. Far from trying to douse tension, TV competed in highlighting horrific events, including even fictions like the supposed pregnant woman whose womb was slit by Hindu fanatics.

Did the aggressive media in 2002 increase communal tensions and violence compared with 1969? Quite possibly. Yet the media were right to pull no punches. By conveying the horror of 2002 all over India, they created a revulsion that Modi himself heeded in his next 12 years in Gujarat. Subsequently too, media competition greatly increased coverage of all sorts of discrimination and violence. Events once buried in the inside pages of newspapers became prime time TV news. This improved public sensitivity to discrimination and thuggery, and hence government accountability.

The BJP says it is being treated unfairly today, since there have been a few stray communal incidents but no riots. The BJP was not behind the Dadri or Jammu lynchings, or the killing of rationalist writers, and was actually a victim in the ink-throwing incident. However, BJP spokesmen have found it almost impossible to condemn these incidents outright, and sought to convert the cow into a vote-gaining tactic in Bihar. This BJP hypocrisy has rightly been condemned. Yet its current sins are absolutely nothing compared with 1992 or 2002.

Intolerance has not worsened. Rather, our civic standards have improved, and we are quicker to get disgusted. Competitive TV has made us much more easily horrified, terrified, alarmed, disgusted, and angry. That’s an excellent development. Private TV has not just improved entertainment and variety, but also hugely increased our sensitivity to all that’s wrong in society, to all its horrors and atrocities.

This is a major gain of economic liberalization. In 1991, leftists opposed private TV channels, saying these would be tools in the hands of big business. What rubbish. Private TV has empowered the citizen to view the horrors that government channels had always downplayed and sanitized. That has raised our civic standards, lowering our thresholds for anger and revulsion. Hurrah!

The man who's always on the bus

2 April 2015 Damian Zane in BBC Magazine

Heathrow airport is pretty empty at 2am. One of the few people around is a man waiting for a bus.

It's part of his nightly ritual as he seeks shelter on London's network of night buses.

This is Ahmed, not his real name, a 44-year-old failed asylum seeker from India. He's wrapped in a large cream, canvas coat, with a thick brush of grey hair combed to one side.

Ahmed starts his journey at about 11pm in Leicester Square, in the heart of tourist London, packed full of people throughout most of the night.

It's a perfect place to remain invisible.

"With all these people going to the pubs and clubs, you can stay here until four o'clock in the morning," he says.

But Ahmed's typical nightly route starts with the number 24 to Hampstead Heath. Then he gets off, and gets the bus straight back where he came.

By the time he reaches central London again, the night buses have started and he can pick one of the longest routes to allow for the most rest.

"Sometimes I think about ending my life," he says, while contemplating the possibility of being arrested and forced to return to India.

Ahmed is a Muslim who grew up on a farm in rural Gujarat. Fearing for his life in the communal riots there in 2002, he fled to London. During an earlier bout of violence he'd witnessed his uncle being stabbed to death.

Traumatised by that experience and concerned that he could be targeted, he was persuaded by his parents to leave and find a better life outside India.

"They said 'you should go, don't worry about us'. That day was a very heavy day for me because I [was] leaving my parents alone," he says.

With a visitor's visa in his passport he flew into Heathrow and applied for asylum. It was rejected. India is considered to be a generally safe country, and certainly big enough for the possibility of restarting a life away from Gujarat.

Ahmed's appeal was also refused and he was told to return to India. But instead he chose to silently drop out of the system, fearing the consequences of returning home.

Not being allowed to work, he had no income and soon began sleeping rough - in doorways and behind bins, occasionally a bed in a shelter. Eventually he heard about the bus option, and has since spent much of the past three-and-a-half years sleeping on night buses.

And during that time, he's picked up certain techniques to remain undetected.

But Ahmed has also learned other methods to improve his chances of a good sleep.

He rushes to the front of the queue, he says, because there are others like him and everyone clamours for the seats on the lower deck, above the engine at the back, where it's warmest.

A Hindu mob confronts a Muslim one in Gujarat, 2002

Ahmed says it's easy to spot others in a similar situation. Many are dressed in jeans and layers of hooded sweatshirts to keep out the cold, often avoiding eye contact in an effort not to be noticed.

At one stop, he points out migrants who he's travelled on the buses with before. It's a fleeting glimpse of some sort of camaraderie between these night travellers, but they all have their own individual struggles to contend with, which can hamper the development of strong friendships.

Ahmed is one of thousands of failed asylum seekers, as well as people awaiting the outcome of appeals, drifting through London, often unrealistically hoping their circumstances will suddenly change.

No accurate count of their numbers exists. It's inherently difficult to count people who have dropped off the radar. A report last year said that the Home Office is unaware how many of the 175,000 people who have no right to be in the UK still remain.

On the bus, Ahmed grabs some rest whenever he can.

He says he has a recurring dream. "It's like somebody's after me, they're going to hit me or stab me." Ahmed says that some people in the same situation can be hostile, pushing and shouting at him.

But his constant fear is of being discovered by authorities. So he adopts a common survival strategy - never cause trouble and never be where trouble is happening.

On the busy Friday and Saturday night buses, things can get rowdy, he says, making it difficult to sleep. But if ever that rowdiness escalates into violence, Ahmed is off at the next stop, keen to avoid being there if police are called.

He's not entirely alone in his struggle to survive in London. A mosaic of organisations exists in the city to help migrants and asylum seekers. They can provide piecemeal help in the form of small cash hand-outs, legal advice, a hot meal and a shower.

Three times a week Ahmed visits a centre in east London where he can wash himself and his clothes. He also stores two plastic bags holding his possessions there. At another of these charities, Ahmed cooks in return for travel money to ride his buses. After the meal, Ahmed plays table tennis and Scrabble with other migrants.

A free meal and the chance of companionship is a big draw.

"I love cooking, I'm happy if the people are eating and bless me," he says. "It means more to me than getting my papers to stay. It's by people's blessing that things will get sorted out."

But these moments of pleasure and purpose are just short punctuations in long stretches of loneliness. And once the centre closes for the day Ahmed is back on the buses.

"Last night my leg was paining me, my whole body was aching, and now the weather's getting cold," he says. "Two winters I passed on the buses and it was quite difficult. It's very difficult to survive in the winter time."

We board the night bus to Heathrow Airport. At 80 minutes, it's one of the longest routes on the network.

But arriving at an airport raises the nagging question about what is so wrong with returning to India. In the UK he has no job, no place to live and no security. It is hard to imagine what could be worse than this.

Yet Ahmed is adamant. "I can't go. Back home I have a more dangerous situation and persecution. So I'm not ready to go back to India.

"If my situation is getting worse then there may be no alternative for me [but to kill myself]. I always pray that I never get caught and sent back to India."

But how much longer can he continue?

Another couple of years, Ahmed says. He clings to the hope that once he's been in the UK for 12 years he'll be allowed to stay officially. But that optimism is not backed up by the law.

Such a provision - after 14 years, not 12 - did exist until 2012. People living in the UK - either legally or illegally - for that time could then apply for leave to remain. That period has now been lengthened to 20 years.

And unless Ahmed decides to return to India, or gets caught, that means many more hours of waiting, and many more night buses.

CAG rips into famed Gujarat growth model

TNN | Apr 1, 2015, 01.00 AM IST

The Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG) of India report tabled in the state assembly on Tuesday raised several question marks on the much-famed Gujarat Model. 

The report tore apart the tall claims of the state government led by former chief minister Narendra Modi on agricultural growth, social indicators and spent on social infrastructure, fiscal discipline, right to education, and law and order situation. 

The report observed that Gujarat's average annual agriculture growth rate during the 11th five-year plan (2007-12) was 5.49% — better than the all India average of 4.06%. However, GDP in agriculture clocked a negative growth (-6.96%) in 2012-13, the first year of 12th plan, as compared to the previous years — 21.64% in 2010-11 and 5.02% in 2011-12. 

Failure in social sector schemes like State Child Protection Policy is also highlighted. The report notes that as per 2011 census, while the all-India sex ratio improved from 933 to 943, it worsened from 922 to 919 in Gujarat. The state hasn't performed well in implementing the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, only six out of total 181 offenders were convicted. 

Also highlighted are the government's failure in preventing child marriages, poor implementation of the Right to Education Act, delay in road projects and failure in the execution of mid-day meal scheme, besides taking note of poor pupil-teacher ratio, and poor implementation of water supply scheme among others. 

The CAG has also slammed the Gujarat government for the high level of financial indiscipline and poor spending. "The fiscal deficit increased from Rs 15,513 crore in 2009-10 to Rs 18,422 crore in 2013-14." It also highlighted non-submission of utilization certificates of Rs 7420.40 crore indicating lack of proper monitoring by departments. CAG observed lapses in tax collection also. It noted that more than Rs 300 crore non-recovery of Value Added Tax (VAT). 

Public sector undertakings, too, posted an unimpressive return on investment according to the report. "During the last five years, the state government invested Rs 24,007 crore, the average return by way of dividend on the investments in government companies and statutory corporations etc., was 0.31% only," the report noted. 

Gujarat Shining - An Alternative Opinion

Jean Dreze in The Hindu 11 April 2014

Why does Gujarat have indifferent social indicators, in spite of having enjoyed runaway economic growth and relatively high standards of governance?

Gujarat’s development achievements are moderate, largely predate Narendra Modi, and have as much to do with public action as with economic growth.

As the nation heads for the polling booths in the numbing hot winds of April, objective facts and rational enquiry are taking a holiday and the public relations industry is taking over.

Narendra Modi’s personality, for one, has been repackaged for mass approval. From an authoritarian character, steeped in the reactionary creed of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and probably complicit in the Gujarat massacre of 2002, he has become an almost avuncular figure — a good shepherd who is expected to lead the country out of the morass of corruption, inflation and unemployment. How he is supposed to accomplish this is left to our imagination — substance is not part of the promos. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), too, is being reinvented as the party of clean governance, overlooking the fact that there is little to distinguish it from the Congress as far as corruption is concerned.

Spruced up image

Similarly, Gujarat’s image has been spruced up for the occasion. Many voters are likely to go the polling booths under the impression that Gujarat resembles Japan, and that letting Mr. Modi take charge is a chance for the whole of India to follow suit.

Some of Mr. Modi’s admirers in the economics profession have readily supplied an explanation for Gujarat’s dazzling development performance: private enterprise and economic growth. This interpretation is popular in the business media. Indeed, it fits very well with the corporate sector’s own view that the primary role of the state is to promote business interests.

However, as more sober scholars (Raghuram Rajan, Ashok Kotwal, Maitreesh Ghatak, among other eminent economists) have shown, Gujarat’s development achievements are actually far from dazzling. Yes, the State has grown fast in the last twenty years. And anyone who travels around Gujarat is bound to notice the good roads, mushrooming factories, and regular power supply. But what about people’s living conditions? Whether we look at poverty, nutrition, education, health or related indicators, the dominant pattern is one of indifferent outcomes. Gujarat is doing a little better than the all-India average in many respects, but there is nothing there that justifies it being called a “model.” Anyone who doubts this can download the latest National Family Health Survey report, or the Raghuram Rajan Committee report, and verify the facts.

To this, the votaries of the Gujarat model respond that the right thing to look at is not the level of Gujarat’s social indicators, but how they have improved over time. Gujarat’s progress, they claim, has been faster than that of other States, especially under Mr. Modi. Alas, this claim too has been debunked. Indeed, Gujarat was doing quite well in comparison with other States in the 1980s. Since then, its relative position has remained much the same, and even deteriorated in some respects.

An illustration may help. The infant mortality rate in Gujarat is not very different from the all-India average: 38 and 42 deaths per 1,000 live births, respectively. Nor is it the case that Gujarat is progressing faster than India in this respect; the gap (in favour of Gujarat) was a little larger twenty years ago — in both absolute and proportionate terms. For other indicators, the picture looks a little more or a little less favourable to Gujarat depending on the focus. Overall, no clear pattern of outstanding progress emerges from available data.

In short, Gujarat’s development record is not bad in comparative terms, but it is nothing like that of say Tamil Nadu or Himachal Pradesh, let alone Kerala. But there is another issue. Are Gujarat’s achievements really based on private enterprise and economic growth? This is only one part of the story.

When I visited Gujarat in the 1980s, I was quite impressed with many of the State’s social services and public facilities, certainly in comparison with the large north Indian states. For instance, Gujarat already had mid-day meals in primary schools at that time — decades later than Tamil Nadu, but decades earlier than the rest of India. It had a functional Public Distribution System — again not as effective as in Tamil Nadu, but much better than in north India. Gujarat also had the best system of drought relief works in the country, and, with Maharashtra, pioneered many of the provisions that were later included in the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. Gujarat’s achievements today build as much on its ability to put in place functional public services as on private enterprise and growth.

Misleading model

To sum up, the “Gujarat model” story, recently embellished for the elections, is misleading in at least three ways. First, it exaggerates Gujarat’s development achievements. Second, it fails to recognise that many of these achievements have little to do with Narendra Modi. Third, it casually attributes these achievements to private enterprise and economic growth. All this is without going into murkier aspects of Gujarat’s experience, such as environmental destruction or state repression.

At the end of the day, Gujarat poses an interesting puzzle: why does it have indifferent social indicators, in spite of having enjoyed runaway economic growth for so long, as well as relatively high standards of governance? Perhaps this has something to do with economic and social inequality (including highly unequal gender relations), or with the outdated nature of some of India’s social statistics, or with a slackening of Gujarat’s earlier commitment to effective public services. Resolving this puzzle would be a far more useful application of mind than cheap propaganda for NaMo.

Jean Dreze in The Hindu on 11 May 2014

If Gujarat is a model, then the real toppers in development indicators, like Kerala and Tamil Nadu, must be supermodels

In an earlier article published on this page (“The Gujarat Muddle,” April 11, 2014), I pointed out that Gujarat’s development achievements were hardly “model” class. This is pretty firm ground: the same point has been made by a long list of eminent economists. Yet confusion persists, so I decided to take another look at the data, just in case I had been carried away.

Summary indexes

This time I looked at a bunch of summary indexes based on multiple development indicators. One advantage of summary indexes is that they make it harder to “cheat” by focussing selectively on particular indicators that happen to suit one’s purpose. The Human Development Index (HDI) is a good starting point. The latest HDI computations for Indian states, presented by Reetika Khera and myself in Economic and Political Weekly, place Gujarat in the 9th position among 20 major States — very close to the middle of the ranking. In the same paper, we also looked at a summary index of child well-being, nicknamed Achievements of Babies and Children (ABC), which is based on four indicators related to child nutrition, survival, education and immunisation respectively. In the ABC ranking, too, Gujarat occupies the 9th position among 20 major States.

Another useful summary index is the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI). Briefly, the idea is that poverty manifests itself in different kinds of deprivation — lack of food, shelter, sanitation, schooling, health care, and so on. Starting with a list of basic deprivations, a household is considered “poor” if it has more than a given proportion (say one third) of these deprivations. There is some inevitable arbitrariness in the specification of basic deprivations, but nevertheless, the MPI is a very useful supplement to other poverty indicators. In the latest MPI ranking of Indian States, by Sabina Alkire and her colleagues at Oxford University, Gujarat comes 9th (again) among 20 major Indian States.

A new entrant in this family of summary statistics is the Composite Development Index devised by the Raghuram Rajan Committee. This index has ten components related to per capita consumption, household amenities, health, education, urbanisation, connectivity, financial inclusion, and so on, based on the latest available data. Looking at the list of component indicators, an unsuspecting reader of the mainstream media might expect Gujarat to emerge pretty close to the top of the State ranking. Alas, not. Here again, Gujarat scores 9th among 20 major States!

There is something almost uncanny about this pattern, since the summary indexes are based on very different indicators. And it’s not that I am selectively focussing on particular rankings where Gujarat happens to rank 9th out of 20. I have reported all the recent summary indexes I know of. If you don’t like them, we can always fall back on the Planning Commission’s standard poverty estimates based on per capita expenditure. But then Gujarat slips from the 9th to the 10th position among 20 major States, according to the latest estimates for 2011-12.

The Raghuram Rajan Committee also devised another interesting index: the Performance Index, which captures the progress that States are making over time in terms of the Composite Development Index. This is an important indicator, because some proponents of the Gujarat model argue that what we should look at is not the level of Gujarat’s development indicators, but how they change over time. And that is precisely what this index does. Further, it focusses on performance in the decade of the 2000s, when Gujarat was supposed to be at its best. Surely, Gujarat will fare well this time? On the contrary, it slips from 9th to 12th in the ranking of 20 major States.

In short, whichever way we look at it, Gujarat looks less like a model State than a “middle State” — far from the bottom in inter-State rankings, but far from the top too. If there is a Gujarat model, then there must also be a Haryana model and perhaps a Karnataka model. Incidentally, Maharashtra does better than Gujarat on all the summary indexes mentioned earlier. Why, then, is Gujarat held as a model and not Maharashtra? Your guess is as good as mine.

If Gujarat is a model, then the real toppers, like Kerala and Tamil Nadu, must be supermodels. Indeed, not only do Kerala and Tamil Nadu routinely come at — or near — the top in rankings of summary development indexes, they also surpass other States in terms of the speed of improvement. For instance, Kerala and Tamil Nadu do better than any other major State in terms of both level and change of the Composite Development Index. Of course, if you believe the touching story whereby Kerala’s achievements are actually based on the Gujarat model, then we are back to square one.

Why this image?

An interesting question arises: how did Gujarat acquire an inflated image? No doubt, this optical illusion partly reflects Narendra Modi’s outstanding ability to confuse the public (with a little help from his admirers in the economics profession). But perhaps it also has something to do with the fact that our perception of India is over-influenced by the large north Indian States — the former “BIMARU” States, which have dismal infrastructure, awful public services, and abysmal social indicators. Gujarat certainly shines in comparison — but so do many other States.

Mind you, the “G spot” (9th out of 20) may be auspicious. The number nine, according to Wikipedia, “is revered in Hinduism and considered a complete, perfected [sic] and divine number.” The Chinese, for their part, associate the number nine with the dragon, “a symbol of magic and power,” which also “symbolises the Emperor.” If the numerologists got this right, NaMo is well placed.

Gujarat is India’s top state in economic freedom

S A Aiyer in the Times of India

Does Narendra Modi actually have a great Gujarat model, or just wellpackaged hype? Critics say that Gujarat has grown fast, but some others have grown faster. 

The Raghuram Rajan Committee on development indicators says Gujarat’s social indicators are just middling. Looking at children of class 3-5 who can do subtraction, Gujarat has declined from 22nd among 28 states in 2006 to 23rd in 2012. However, economist Arvind Panagariya argues that Gujarat has made substantial social progress under Modi, starting from a low base. 

Forget this debate. Neither growth nor social indicators are accurate measures of Modi’s main election plank — good governance. Measuring governance is difficult, and hence neglected by statisticians. Yet it’s all-important. One annual report has long provided indicators of governance. This is Economic Freedom of the States of India (EFSI), written by Bibek Debroy, Laveesh Bhandari and me. The 2013 EFSI report shows Gujarat has been No. 1 in economic freedom for the last three years, widening its lead over others. On a scale from 0 to 1, its overall freedom score has improved from 0.46 to 0.65. Tamil Nadu comes a distant second with 0.54. Economic freedom is not identical to good governance. But lack of economic freedom typically means poor governance — a jungle of rules and obfuscating bureaucrats that promote corruption, delay and harassment. This hits everybody from farmers and consumers to industrialists and transporters. 

What exactly is economic freedom? EFSI uses a methodology adapted from Economic Freedom of the World, an annual publication of the Fraser Institute. Data for Indian states is not available on many issues. So, EFSI limits itself to 20 indicators of the size and efficiency of state governments, their legal structure and property rights, and regulation of labour and business. 

Many of these indicators directly measure governance — the proportion of stolen property recovered; proportion of judicial vacancies; proportion of violent crimes; proportion of investigations completed by police and of cases completed by the courts; and the pendency rate of corruption cases. The list is by no means comprehensive, but provides strong clues. 

Gujarat is the best state in pendency of corruption cases, and in the proportion of non-violent crime. It is close to the top in completion of police investigations. It scores poorly in judicial vacancies and recovery of stolen property. 

Its quality of government spending is high: it has the lowest ratio of administrative GDP to total GDP. Spending is focused on infrastructure rather than staff. Modi’s repeated state election victories show that his approach produces high voter satisfaction. Gujarat is not a classical free-market state. It has large, expanding public sector companies, and substantial taxes on capital and commodities. It has many subsidies, though fewer than in other states. Still, business thrives in its business-friendly climate. One businessman told me that in Tamil Nadu, it took six months and several visits (and payments) to ministries for industrial approval. But in Gujarat, the ministry concerned called him the day before his appointment, asking for details of his proposal. Next day, he found the bureaucracy had in advance prepared plans of possible locations for his project, and settled the matter on the spot. This was unthinkable elsewhere, and showed both efficiency and honesty. Corruption has not disappeared in Gujarat, but is muted. 

Modi’s Jyotigram scheme provides 24/7 electricity for rural households, plus reliable power at fixed times for tubewells. This explains why Gujarat has India’s fastest agricultural growth (10%/year for a decade, say economists Gulati and Shah). Indian agriculture is crippled by regulations, but Gulati shows that Gujarat has the highest agricultural freedom among states. Modi charges farmers for power, and so all his three state power companies are profitable. By contrast, power companies in other states with free rural power have accumulated losses of almost Rs 200,000 crore. 

Critics accuse him of giving cheap land to favoured industrialists. But state and national governments the world over use such sops to attract industries. Unlike most politicians, Modi has clearly not enriched himself. 

Good governance includes communal peace. So, the 2002 Muslim killings reflect terribly on Modi. For some, it puts him beyond the pale. But since 2002 the state has been peaceful. In 2011-12 , Gujarat had the lowest Muslim rural poverty rate among all states. Its overall poverty rate for Muslims (11.4%) was far lower than for Hindus (17.6%). This was also true of six other states, so Gujarat is not unique in this. 

In sum, EFSI and other studies show that Gujarat has good governance. It has social and communal flaws. But it is India’s top state in economic and agricultural freedom. That’s not hype.