The Modi Government - a end of term view

It’s the flavour of the season to comment, criticise, analyse, advice the Modi led BJP government as they reach the finishing line in a few months and the country goes into fresh elections. The very fact that many citizens are doing so is testimony to the fact that the Indian public have now inexorably got involved in matters of the state which is the best thing to happen to India. That Modi and his advent created this zeal and excitement must be acknowledged. After all, how many of us were so involved in either politics or policy in the past when other parties were in power. That Modi catalysed the nation to be more involved is an incontrovertible fact. Citizens have an opinion, feel they must be heard and think they are being heard, thanks to social media.

Vote banks are dead, long live vote banks:

For long the Indian electorate went and voted without expectation, hope or even interest. Nobody showed off an inked finger. Every party was clear who would win and opinion/ exit polls when they started were so bang on target that it simply removed the excitement of election results. One reason was that vote banks and campaign strategy were invariably caste based with freebies.

The post 2009 UPA govt changed all that. Starting from the 2008 Mumbai terror attack, the 2012 horrifying Delhi rape, water cannons against agitating students, corruption scams and the obvious silence and insipid image of a Prime Minister at the most crucial moments galvanised an entire country to ask questions. A demure little man called Anna Hazare captured the imagination of youths like never before and India Against Corruption was born. The rest as they say is history.

With an over 50% youthful aspirational population, an orator par excellence in Modi the electorate soon got divided into the traditional and the new. While caste factors mattered to the traditional the rest wanted to hear about jobs, development, self-respect globally, security which no one had ever spoken in decades.  

There is a 20% populace that will vote BJP whatever happens and a similar 20% will vote for the Congress. So, we have a whopping 60% who will decide the outcome of an election. In this 60% my guesstimate is that about 20% again have other loyal party preferences but are fragmented across the country. The balance 40% will swing the votes towards the winner – based on who all vote, how they vote.  In our first past the post system a party in a fragmented election like in 2014, can romp home with a huge majority like BJP/Modi did with just 30% vote share. But that was an exception.

In a fragmented election situation like in 2014 a party would need about 30%+ vote share to win decisively. Both need 10%+ votes from the undecided voters. In a less-fragmented situation as it is likely in 2019, a party will need to get an additional 20% votes to win decisively. This means that whether it is BJP or Congress they will need to fight for mindshare of this additional 20% to surge to a ~35/40% vote share to win decisively. Whatever they get from other party shares is bonus. Every party needs to fully target these fence sitters if they want to win decisively.

Even in a fragmented election of 2019 the BJP 30% must become 35 % to win a majority. If it is a unfragmented election, then this figure goes up to 40% for BJP to win decisively. The 30% of BJP in a fragmented election today would likely mean largest single party at best.

This is the new reality – the new vote bank of fence sitters. This 20% is neither ideologically or religiously inclined, nor falling under any particular caste/ age/ education profile to have an appeal. Modi and BJP won 2014 not from any negative vote as is often perceived, but from a positive vote to that message – “It’s all about the money, honey”. In 2019 considering that the BJP/Modi will need to garner in excess of 35% vote share to even win let alone have a majority the party will need to recalibrate its strategy quickly as of yesterday. That they have lost a lot of opportunities, that there is a sense of disappointment amongst the fence sitters is fact. The BJP needs to go back to remembering – “It’s still all about the money, honey”.

The Modi government faltered on some key issues even after granting Modi the elbow room of being new to Delhi, a hostile media, an entrenched system with past loyalties, a bankrupt economy, a bruised defence machinery, hostile neighbours, a no longer loyal USA/USSR back up. Some of them are as follows.

Strike when the iron is hot: This government has consistently failed in this. They have dithered or taken the moral high ground.

Delhi state elections: The BJP should have announced Delhi state elections immediately by August 2014 when everyone was still in a state of shock and BJP in the honeymoon period. Kejriwal and AAP have proved to be a thorn literally in the seat of the BJP pants.

Retrospective Tax:  The draconian retrospective tax should have been abolished with future effect or widely changed to create early goodwill amongst investors. Instead the government actually defended this law showing high levels of stupidity. Can you ever imagine a Congress government defending the past actions of BJP?  A Congress government would have trashed such a BJP law in 24 hrs and hauled BJP over red hot coals & created huge goodwill amongst business that would last years.

Economy white paper: A white paper on the economy should have been prepared enlisting the signatures of then RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan amongst others even if the paper was not published. The very presence of this paper would act like a big stick for anybody who tried to play politics.  This should have included a separate section on the issue of fake currency, its link to terror and the overall impact on the Indian economy. This in my opinion was a scam/ negligence of mega proportions that should have been exposed, acted upon at an appropriate time.

British Currency Firm Banned in 2011

Pakistan Economic Terror Plans 2013

Germany Currency Supplier to Pakistan Banned 2015

Owaisi questions fake currency from Pakistan 2016

Secret World of Indian Currency Printing 2016

The Modi government latest by 2017 should have tabled in parliament a report on the fake currency & economic terror strategy that would have sent many scurrying for cover and punctured criticism against Demonetisation early in the game. That the government chose not to publish this even till date gives credence to the popular opinion that this government is trying to save friends in the Congress. Can you ever imagine a Congress government sitting quiet in such a situation? Even if they didn’t publish it, an actionable report would be ready, and every person involved have the fear of god instilled in them to obtain silence for life.

Security/Defence white paper: Here again a white paper should have been prepared under the tutelage of leading, credible experts and published. More than one senior leader during the 2014 election campaign referred to the fragile security situation. Even a critical of Modi columnist shared an incident in her column. That the Modi government did not wash this dirty linen in public and has not done so till date also speaks of poor strategy.

Shobha De & the Army Officers Wife

Burnol after Demonetisation:

The decision to demonetise – whatever the real reasons – disrupted the economy. Threw everybody’s life helter-skelter. Yet a patient nation, trusting Modi did not revolt. Many even supported it in the country. I said these a year back.

Tweet thread on 17 December 2017

Tweet thread of 16 September 2017 & 29 February 2016

One more Tweet thread of 17 December 2017

Tweet thread of 2 February 2018

The 2018 budget should have been a song and dance about how citizens have helped this government, it should have been about “sops” to those who suffered, and the government should have thanked the voters who bore the brunt of the misery both figuratively and literally. But let alone apply burnol after the burns, the government simply moved on. Today in end 2018/2019 they are waking up hoping to correct this.

I have spoken enough and more over the past few years about this government having abysmally failed in having any item numbers that would cheer the audience but instead focussed only on deep dive economics and so will not elaborate further.

Building goodwill:

Fact is that one of the reasons for Modi/BJP win in 2014 was a large number of citizens with passion, information and understanding acted as social media warriors for the party. These were not party workers or even ideologically conjoined with BJP/RSS. They were what can be termed right wing, free spirited, vociferous, young, passionate and amongst the educated/informed audience were opinion makers. These need not necessarily agree with or applaud every BJP policy but on crucial issues especially economic they could blunt the criticism of the “other” side on social media. These have large following and their opinions noticed. These need not be given perks or positions but could have been given a message – “Hey we appreciate your opinion”, “We understand your criticism”, “We thank you for your efforts in spreading the message” etc. The goodwill could have been earned by several small but important actions. Senior leaders start following them, have a seminar where you invite such folks to participate and talk with a senior party leader, respond to/ appreciate their views even if it is a criticism. Today many feel that this party doesn’t care, takes support for granted, etc and their columns or comments show that the enthusiasm has ebbed if not changed.

A government has a myriad of issues and all of them cannot be covered here and will be covered in future blogs. But for now, the government with all haste, however late, must try to undo part of the damage caused. They need to table the white paper on economic issues and defence issues on a war footing – in parliament before the current session ends. Doing so in the budget session will not attract any benefits – just look like cheap politics.