Populism

One of the most telling comments about leadership can be this refrain- Leadership is not a popularity contest! It has many spins, for eg. at home- parenting is not a popularity contest, and that further has gotten a more accurate understanding, with men can be a while on paternity, but women are on maternity for eternity! And most of these ‘spins’ or ‘spiels’ are actually good truthful summations of the situation at home.
While Mr Rahul appears to have finally got some breathing space, more like a charitable anniversary gift to the INC for having been their unelected President for the past one year and for taking fewer holidays and fixating on Rafale, the victories in the Hindi Heartland are being taken to an extreme form of populism which is loan waiver mania that is sweeping India. If you thought that only Congress ruled states were waiving burdens, last night from Gujarat came the shocker. Urbania was being obliged, a recognition by BJP of its urban strength, and by promising to  waive off electricity bills, Mr Rupani has pierced the Modi Myth of a Reformer by slaying the only true reform- properly priced power supply to Gujaratis; with sops! The run up to Lok Sabha 2019 is very evident in this surprise measure, and has Amit Shah all over it, that if Rahul was thinking of buying his way to power, then Shah with more resources than any political honcho in Indian history of political movements, will maintain the BJP momentum with such measures.
Actually perception is what is so critical to the larger political event management. All Mr Modi has to do is to try and not compete with Mr Rahul, unlike how the INC is trying to imitate the BJP. Promising cow shelters, temple runs, shifting the stand in Sabarimala, staying mute on cow vigilantism, and trying not to be seen as seeking accountability from Hindu right wing, seems to be the new Congress avatar. For good measure, this too is populism. It is to Mr Modi’s credit, that non appeasement of minorities has taken to this form where Mr Rahul has become a Janeaudhari! So if one sees Mr Rahul he is not a shadow of his lineage as a Congress President, far far removed from Nehruvian practices of real politik. One has doubts whether the intellectual capacity to weave complex arguments has deserted Indian masses or whether they have become overnight so cynical, that if one takes the view of resurgence of the INC it can be laid only at the door of ‘taunts’ and ‘rants’. ‘Through taunts and rants, Momma I show who wears the pants!’ This is Mr Rahul’s mantra.
So he has steadfastly baited Mr Modi, in a series of moves, that did not involve ‘Riots’ but ‘Ryots’, that did not involve ‘rebooting India’ but ‘suit boot sarkar’, by talking about 15 Friends not Indian farmer who seems to have no means to his end! Then Rafale. If there was one government that could get undone with such elemental trick like who will blink first, it appears this is the one!Are there any real issues here? Mr Modi has been left claiming as his achievements what have come his way in an incidental manner, not because he was not insistent or he was not imaginative or that he was not industrious. It was because his cabinet has let him down so badly with their non performance that he is unable to at his public appearances, recall to his core base any Real Deal that he has swung in his current term, ending up seeking to rake up issues of the dead past, which to a late entrant would seem to be a stump speech of a campaigner not a governor! So much has been laid at the door of Nehru or of the INC that even Mr Vajpayee’s first tenure as a non Congress PM for a full term has been obliterated in the narrative.
Yesterday GST was made more complex and cheaper with a further tweak. The way one matinee maniac Gabbar Singh was invoked, it seems to have taken the wind out of the Finance Ministry. Bitter analysts complain that Mr Jaitley is better off blogging that improvising and finding his feet in North Block, in a term that could be called a Finance Minister’s era of ridicule and redundancy! Demonetisation was not his idea, GST was not his fixation, subsidies have not been looked at, banking regulation went out of his orbit, RBI has been cooked, and the fine reputation Indian numbers for GDP data and other economic indices lay in ruins!Now connecting the dots, it seems that Mr Modi has simply been inaugurating projects already up and running from previous regimes like the Coach Factory at Rae Bareilly or he is only now laying foundation stone for Maharashtra’s affordable housing scheme. The surety with which he seemed to make 5 years equal to sixty years when running for office, has vanished, and now is his plea going to be to give him fifty to do what he promised in five?
The economic performance has not been bad overall, but incrementalism is not going to help. As China’s magic numbers show, for a regime to be popular it needs close to two digit growth through decades, as she multiplied her GDP 80 times from the early 1960s to 2010. It is the failure of Make in India, that will grate in the record of Mr Modi. What will evince voter traction is how the Rafale has come down from 186 to 36, how it will be all flown in, and how the claim of offset and other local effort falls flat. So far the Bullet has shown poor presence- land acquisition for the project has run into headwinds! In Gujarat which was a model to Shingur in Bengal, embracing the NANO, is now not in favour of Bullet Train. Ahmedabad- Gandhinagar Metro is yet to commence, and this poor pace of infrastructure too has not helped Mr Modi. The Ro-Ro service between Bharauch and Bhavnagar at Dehej is a unique concept for that part, like the Mandovi river barrage we see in Goa, but the berthing ports are yet to be completed, and the launch frequently suffers delays. Like wise in Varanasi, his adopted constituency, the Ganges based ferry service was demonstrated, but would a goods shipper use a ferry that takes 15 days to get to Kolkata or Kashi one way?
Kedarnath is one shrine benefiting from Mr Modi’s attention, likewise the Kumbh in Prayagraj would. But remove the event management, the substantive infrastructure is yet to get there. We will see huge planters with tree saplings on them line up to green the banks, we will see white tented cities spruce up the Sangam, we will see chopper ferry service from Sangam to Manikarnika Ghat at Kashi, and look back and say- how much of this makes a difference to the dweller of Kashi or Prayag? The Airport at Bamrauli was meant to be inaugurated for quite some time. Instead Mr Modi could only inaugurate a water waste treatment plant as part of Namame Gange!Mr Modi seems to be Ernest and a man in a hurry, only we are not catching up with him, and the gap between where we think we should be and where we are is costing Mr Modi precious public votes!
So is Mr Modi on the retreat? No, despite the emerging noises from RSS to have him replaced by Mr Gadkari. But is Mr Rahul on the ascendent? No despite the tall claims by Mr Stalin that he is the next PM! I am writing on purely perceptive populism of the two only because Mint in its editorial accuses Mr Rahul alone of populism, forgetting how Mr Modi’s populisms are costing the government exchequer. The truth is that Congress governments in Punjab and Karnataka are staggering their implementation of electoral promises, they are not short of funds, whereas Mr Modi at the centre is desperately short. So we have Jaitley indulging in tricks like getting LIC to buy into IL&FS debt, PFC is buying REC debt and so better managed PSUs are ending up footing the bill for the Government. While Aviral as Deputy Governor flagged the issue of RBI’s balances which the government was eyeing, we know that the marathon meeting that the Board held under Urjit Patel was the straw that broke his camel back! We also know that many flagship programmes announced by the PM have not taken off on ground including the Insurance based Health Scheme for lack of funding. So the economics report card of Mr Modi appears more dubious than his largely academic duplicity involving his academic qualifications!
So mark my position. If Mr Modi does not seize the narrative through robust last quarter performance, he will be viewed  as eminently replaceable by the Deep Owners of India, a kind of surreal but perhaps existent cabal of industrial and managerial clique who are the money bags of India. Entire economic engine of India threw its weight behind Mr Modi in the run up to 2014, and even if some of that falters, it would make the RSS nervous enough to offer an exchange policy- with Gadkari as the front running choice to replace Mr Modi.Hence populism unbridled in just taking shape, and it may well be another famed Gujarat Model!https://www.livemint.com/Home-Page/BElwf0uKDe4TDGkXQaHdLL/Gujarat-govt-to-write-off-pending-electricity-bills-worth-6.html