My Independence Day thoughts

Some thoughts on India's development processes while celebrating 70 years of independence.

The single most important thing we can do to make India better is to stop assessing it's development metrics as a monolith. With respect to economics, human development, industrialization, health and sanitation, education, employment etc, our variances are very vast! We should stop looking at indices like national GDP growth rate, IIP, gross food grain production, overall budget of healthcare etc. Not to forget the single most useless number, national consumer price index (CPI), that is being used as an inflation monitor by RBI. These numbers hold little value when variances are so large.

The 4 slabs of GST rates is not just an outcome of political shadow boxing, but ground realities of the vast systemic economic differences that exist in our country. We ought to go down to district or panchayat level indicators & indices with respect to healthcare, inflation, education, GDP, sanitation, unemployment figures to understand local effects. We ought to analyze the demography through the prism of class, income and economic condition and study the indices of each segment separately not just geographically.

The number of people who get missed by margins of error in even state based indices could run into millions, offset by few high value data points. E.g., A flash transporters strike may not affect a well stocked reliance fresh store that has good food storage facilities but will affect the street vendors in the same area. This in turn affects the corresponding consumer class in that area.

So, let's hope that our macro policy makers and people in general move beyond single point measures  to more sensible ways of measuring national development indicators that takes into account the diverse variances of the country. 

Of NEET, Patidar & Jat protests, Bhim Army and the fundamental responsibilities of the State

Protests have been erupting across the country on various issues over the years. We've seen the Jat and Patidar protests for reservations in the last couple of years as well as the Bhim army swarming the National capital as well as parts of western UP and Gujarat. Tamil Nadu, moreover, for the last year seems to be in an eternal state of protest for one reason or the other. What ties the suicide of a laborer's daughter in TN, who fought against NEET, to the protests against land acquisition for nuclear power plant in Jaitapur? What ties the Patidar protests in Gujarat and the Jat protests in Haryana to the BJP's landslide victory in UP? The answer to this in my opinion seems to be two fold.

1. The fundamental role of the state is rapidly evolving post May 2014. 

2. The unheard aspirations of huge rural demographics and the information asymmetry that was prevalent earlier is no more with the emergence of social media. 

When PM Modi's BJP was elected to power in May 2014, there was no second questioning about the mandate being a vote of an aspirational India to upward mobility in life. Things like, corruption, appeasement politics of UPA etc were just the final mile mandate converters. But the question lie as to what this aspirational India wanted. The narrative that dominated mainstream media during the campaign period and the early days of NDA-2 was that of a nation making use of it's favorable demographics and economic fundamentals to enable upward mobility and assert itself in the world for it's interests. 

For the first time, economic and foreign policy institutions and think tanks started studying India under Modi as a different animal. The word in vogue was 'Reforms'. Us, the urban educated middle class and upper class wanted reforms to make the govt get rid of it's non performing sectors, reduce massive leakage and mindless subsidies in places where possible and overall, provide a platform for us to compete with the best across the world. Globalization showed us what the world has achieved and what we can if we concentrate on efficient resource and energy allocations. Aadhar linked subsidies, cut in subsidies for petrol, gas, kerosene etc disinvestment in sick PSUs were all results of this. From changing to NITIAayog as a policy based enabler at the centre to rapidly passing environmental clearances for large capital projects across the country, the govt was fulfilling its understood mandate as an enabler of job creation and economic growth. Apparently, this was just one side of the story. 

For the first time in 68 years, the union govt saw it's primary role as an enabler of opportunities rather than an ensurer of welfare for the under privileged. The amount of subsidies in the govt's budget sharply went down. Land acquisition from small owners increased and the instances of big industrialists moving into traditionally untouched spaces (physical and service related) of the underprivileged increased rapidly. While this was seen as minor side effect by the urban dwellers, it hit right through the heart of rural masses. The masses of heartland India didn't necessarily vote for this. They wanted a nanny state, albeit cleaner, in varying degrees. They wanted welfare that was guaranteed by UPA through legislation but never properly implemented. The anti establishment sentiment came from throwing out the obnoxious Lutyens insiders who just sang melodies of welfare and social justice but never understood and implemented it cleanly. The Jat and Patidar protests started when they saw that the role of govt being an enabler was well short of their expectations of a handholder. The bahujans of our country saw the aggregation of state resources away from large scale welfare to privileged sections of society, (who saw themselves as better placed to enable wealth creation and growth) as completely against the ideals of social justice. This explains the farmer suicides, TN methane project protests, the NEET protests, the Bhim Army and JNU protests. 

The urban demography missed this aspect of the 2014 mandate. BJP didn't see it until it lost sorely against the Lohiaites in Bihar and learnt it's lesson. In UP, it shifted decisively to populist politics and the selection of Yogi Adityanath, though had us confounded, resonated well with the rural demography and is the result of this class politics. 

This leads us to a fundamental question. What should be the role of the state in India? Is it's role to ensure social justice and redistribute state's capital and resources to reduce inequality and give opportunities to the millions of underprivileged people? Or is it's role to allocate resources to that sections of society that will maximize output and quality and therefore enable and reward the better performers(whether that is by talent or privilege)? We are at an inflection point where there are millions and millions of people in the aspirational middle class who want the govt as an enabler and yet there are millions and millions of people who depend on state's welfare and affirmative action to move up in life.

It is this question that is being debated and fought on multiple fronts across the country. From the compulsion of Aadhar for subsidies to the forcing of NEET exam on a state. From the large scale allocation of infrastructure projects along the geographical commons (sea coasts and forests) to the conception of Smart cities. From increasing railway ticket costs to providing subsidies to airlines for regional connectivity. The proliferation of social media has decreased the information asymmetry between urban and rural dwellers in India to a large extent and therefore we are going to see more and more protests to this definitive U-turn from welfare politics to free market politics. 

I just hope that each side understand the place and needs of the other to better come up with solutions.

This post is dedicated to the departed soul Anitha who wanted our society to have this debate and fought for it right through the corridors of justice in SC.