Gone are the days of coalition politics where regional parties held the sway that led to protracted policy paralysis? It’s Prime Minister Modi’s leadership that stands out post-2014
Amritpal Kaur/New Delhi
Prior to 2014, modus vivendi of Indian electoral politics centred in multiparty coalitions. No single party with all India presence had won a clear majority since 1989. There seemed to be a tacit agreement among political parties on respective regional and national electoral sphere with clear vote-banks and core cadre. India was said to be living in an era of ‘coalition politics’ with sway of regional parties to become ‘kingmakers’ in the national politics.
On the one hand this led to increase in regional voices at national level and on the other, it led to what was touted as policy paralysis as then Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh had to become a prisoner to coalition dharma. The chaos that coalition politics created for governance and central administration was acutely visible at policy implementation level.
A number of promising policies were held hostage at the hands of regional political leadership which lacked specialization and orientation to fathom national interests beyond petty political gains. This intransigence turned into a nightmare as national parties failed to bring forth accepted leaders in whom people across regions could reposit their faith. This tricky transient situation changed with 2014 general elections.
Prime Minister Modi rose on the national horizon with a clear mandate and secured comfortable majority, a feat that had almost became subject matter of electoral lore of a bygone era. This feat was achieved mainly due to a fundamental difference between Prime Minister Modi and his competitors i.e. the conviction and perception of Modi in the minds of people.
He has successfully put forth the image of an efficient and honest administrator and a reformer with the concern for public at heart. What is refreshing about Prime Minister Modi is the fact that he exuberate confidence and reinstates it in general masses about India’s future. At policy level, a few commentators put Modi’s politics to the left of right wing on political spectrum. This was reached derived due to his unequivocal clarity on policy reforms.
After all being said and done, what matters is development and reforms done on the ground that directly impacts people’s lives and is not just ‘business as usual’. Prime Minister Modi has been able to achieve it. What has helped him is the clear majority in both houses of Parliament. Pressure of ‘coalition dharma’ is not on his shoulders and it has allowed him to streamline governance, its aims and goals far more clearly. This phenomenon coupled with his track record as an administrator has enabled Prime Minister Modi to build his own political capital which has stood in good stead for him in consecutive general elections.
There is no pied piper effect here but a genuine belief of majority Indians that given the variety of leaders in the present generation Prime Minister Modi is primus inter pares. The faith reposited in the present government is unprecedented, probably to be matched only by the premiership of Pt. Nehru or Smt Indira Gandhi. However, the crucial difference between Nehru and Modi is that Nehru rode on latent political capital of Indian National Congress that came fresh out of British colonial rule. On the contrary, Modi had generated his political capital in part from his days as a ground level political activist and three-term tenure as chief Minister of Gujarat and partly on the account of the severe anti-incumbency effect for the previous regime.
Last ten years have been watershed era for Indian administration as much as Indian politics that revolves around regional parties and national coalitions. The Government under Prime Minister Modi has brought in a number of long-pending reforms in different facets of Indian political economy with far reaching impact. Goods and Services tax (GST) is a good example of success of Prime Minister Modi’s regime. Though the work for the unified and harmonized pan Indian tax system was in the pipeline for over two decades, yet this revolutionary tax regime could not see light of the day simply because there was no clear majority for any one party or likeminded parties in the Centre.
From modified value added tax to GST has been a long and arduous journey because it directly addressed the issue of fiscal federalism, the Centre and the states needed to work in tandem. The GST also entailed a complex interplay of rules at various levels of governance, which in a frank assessment was a Himalayan task for any government in best of the circumstances. That central government under Prime Minister Modi was able to achieve it, speaks volumes about its acumen to overcome policy paralysis, a quality essential to ensure overall development of the country.
It is said that proof of the pudding is in eating and in many ways Indian economy is reaping benefits of the GST system. As the latest data shows, in December 2023, GST collection rose year-on-year by 12 per cent with record monthly collection of Rs 1.66 Lakh crore. Initial modest projection of achieving Rs 100,000 crore monthly was surpassed big time. The data makes a couple of irrefutable claims. One, the initial hiccups in indirect taxes system in India is now over and we are looking at a well-oiled machine. Secondly, the country realized one nation one tax system. The unified economic structure will enable Indian economy to escape the systemic velocity of a diffused and myriad tax structure.
Another outstanding feature of Indian economic reforms in last decade is introduction of JAM trinity which became the conduit of digitization of Indian economy. In six years, JAM trinity which includes Jan Dhan Yojana, Aadhar Card and Mobile phone has changed the contours of India’s retail economy in the context of money transactions. The feats that it achieved includes financial inclusion of various segments of population especially women who hold 260 million accounts under Jan Dhan Yojana amounting to 56 percent of total accounts opened under the scheme.
Individual payments have been made possible due to Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI). Government has wired over $361 billion in past ten years to beneficiaries and saved $33 billion or 1.14% of total GDP from leaking through the system. In this process, India also achieved the feat of putting in place largest digital G2P infrastructure in the world. The technological development in fintech sector is also reflected in spread of UPI system. India has developed the indigenous payment gateway which has propelled cashless economy to altogether new height.
This point becomes clearer with Russia Ukraine war when the international payment gateway system operating in Russia was stopped overnight limiting the Russian economy and its payment systems partially grounded. One evident aspect is the fact that a country’s financial payment system must be national for strategic reasons. The progressive aspect of DPI is individual control over their data giving them right to share their data with the service provider/s. Since the data control has become an important point of discussion in digitalized economic apparatus, India stands at the forefront of the individual rights on the data control.
The reforms undertaken in about a decade have hastened modernization process of Indian economy, a feat of the scale unseen since 1991 reforms. It is not just the vow factor, an awe-inspiring speed with which work that should catch the eye, but the sheer systemic lethargy that crept in and well established in the Indian administration, which was stalling the reforms in first place. The resistance to change, coupled with entrenched interest in the status quo had held back potential of our great nation.
What changed, however, is the leader at the helm. Prime Minister Modi has loyal support of people because he has shown beyond doubt that in a country as vast as India, where chaos seemed to be business as usual, a streamlined, precise administration is possible.
If he has elevated politics to unique art or developed science out of a chaotic business, it is essentially because he understands the cause-and-effect relation of politics and governance. In a democracy one cannot be effective without the other.
Author is an assistant professor in political science, Dyal Singh College, Delhi University
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