Published on April 4, 2014
Paywalled

https://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/devangshu-datta-mr-modi-s-dodgy-bargain-114040401353_1.html

In the 1960s, Lee Kuan Yew made a compact with the citizens of the new city-state of Singapore. He would ensure the rice bowls were full. In return, citizens would not litter, ask for free speech, or protest an electoral system designed to favour the incumbent. Mr Lee, and his son, delivered on the promise. Singapore is, by any material standard, First World.

It is impossible to transfer Singapore's model of micro-management to larger nations. However, politicians in many East Asian countries have tried to establish similar compacts. The largest experiment was Deng Xiaoping's reboot of China in the late 1970s.

Deng was clear that the Communist Party would stay in charge. But it would cease to be communist in all but name. It would encourage citizens to get rich. China is a big place and not easy to govern.

The Tiananmen Square incident in 1989 was not a great advertisement for Deng's vision. There have been countless industrial protests, Tibetan self-immolations, large-scale corruption in the party, extreme rural-urban inequality, show trials, and so on. But, despite the hiccups, one-party "market communism" has also, by and large, delivered in material terms.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) under Narendra Modi is offering a rather different bargain to India's electorate. Mr Modi claims to have delivered very fast economic growth and created excellent infrastructure and great employment opportunities in his home state. The election campaign says he can replicate that model across India.

In return for economic growth, India's cultural agenda will be set or influenced by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Going by the past experiences of 1998-2004 and the tone and tenor of this campaign, school and college syllabi will be vetted. "Insulting" books, art and movies will be banned, by violent means if the courts are unwilling to pass orders.

Beef eaters will have their diet interfered with. The free mixing of men and women at Navratri, Ganesh Chaturthi, Durga Puja and Holi will continue, as indeed it should. But courting couples will continue to be beaten up on Valentine's Day. Homosexuals and drug users will be treated as criminals, unless they are Naga sadhus, who are exempted from adhering to those sections of the Indian Penal Code. Diwali gambling will be encouraged as a religious rite. But betting on cricket will be forbidden.

The threat of violence to enforce this agenda will be the iron fist in the velvet glove. However, as in 2002, it is also implied that the violence can be efficiently targeted with pinpoint precision. Property belonging to the "right community" (pun intended) will not be damaged.

The RSS cannot push this agenda too hard. Its brand of hardline Hindutva is espoused by a small, vociferous minority and it makes lots of people within the BJP itself uneasy. In its best-ever performances, the BJP won 25 per cent of the vote in 1998 and 1999. The most favourable opinion polls suggest it could win 31 or 32 per cent in 2014. Over 80 per cent of Indians are Hindus. Ergo, the BJP is a minority party desperately claiming to represent a majority.

Can Mr Modi deliver on the economic aspects? Sadly, no. Gujarat was a well-run state before he came to power. It continues to be a high performer with some lacunae in human development indicators. India is much less homogeneous than China and even less easily governed. The Gujarat model, warts and all, cannot be scaled up to fit the rest of the union - especially if the BJP must deal with regional satraps demanding their pound of flesh at both central and state level.

In Gandhinagar, Gujarat, the chief minister can summon his ministers and civil servants and tell them what to do. The prime minister of India cannot do that to his Cabinet colleagues or to chief ministers of the states of the Union.

Hence, the BJP cannot deliver on either end of its compact. The hardliner pining for a Hindutva raj will be disappointed. So will the voter who is hoping for miracles in terms of economic growth.

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