Ashoka Mody, a former IMF and World Bank economist who is now a visiting professor at Princeton University, whose book India is Broken: A People Betrayed, 1947 to Today has recently been published by Juggernaut, says every prime minister from Jawaharlal Nehru to Narendra Modi has “let down and betrayed” the Indian people. The policies they have followed – whether industrial or agricultural or to do with education and health – were poorly designed to tackle the problems India faced either at independence in 1947 or even today in 2023. As a result, over the last 75 years, India has failed to realise its potential and this leads Ashoka Mody to the conclusion that the people of this country have been let down and betrayed by all its prime ministers and governments from independence till today.
In an interview with Karan Thapar for The Wire to discuss his book and its analysis of India over the last 75 years, Mody says that if the country does not change course dramatically – and pretty quickly – India faces a future of mass unemployment with consequent discontent and even, perhaps, social violence.
In the interview, the performance of two prime ministers and their policies is discussed extensively. They are Jawaharlal Nehru and Narendra Modi.
In the case of Nehru, the discussion covers his agricultural policy, industrial policy, handling of education and health. Mody’s conclusion of the Nehru years is the following: “Through the 17-year Nehru era, 60% or more of the Indian population remained in severe poverty. For this large fraction of Indians, the country made no progress.” Of Nehru’s legacy, he says: “His legacy was anaemic material progress, denial of social justice and a widening arc of moral degeneration.”
With reference to Narendra Modi, the discussion extensively covers the ‘Gujarat model’ and why Ashoka Mody believes its “marauding development on steroids”. Of Modi’s decision to implement the Gujarat model nationwide, he writes: “The Gujarat development model and Modi were singularly unsuited to tackle India’s needs … The result: GDP growth slowed, employment levels fell, poverty and precarity very likely increased and human development advanced barely, if at all.”
Mody strenuously disputes the belief that the Gujarat model promotes entrepreneurship. He says: “The Gujarat model was marauding development on steroids. For businesses, it was bonanza time! They received virtually free land, large loans at nearly zero interest rates, generous tax breaks and no-fuss environmental clearances. The taxpayer bore the cost … Modi … was not promoting entrepreneurship. He was subsidising favourite industrialists who created virtually no jobs.”
In this context, Mody cites the example of Gautam Adani, whose turnover, he claims, increased 14-fold between 2000 and 2013. He says: “Gautam Adani embodied the Gujarat model … the Gujarat government sold Adani land at rates that were far below the market price. He received highly underpriced natural gas from a government-owned company and paid a much lower than contractually stipulated penalty for delays in supplying electric power to the state’s grid. His projects caused irreparable damage to waterways and the livelihoods of fishermen and when he seized community pasture lands, he destroyed valuable mangroves … his capital-intensive projects created only a limited number of jobs and these were mainly for skilled workers.”
Of Prime Minister Modi’s election promise of creating 2 crore jobs each year, Ashoka Mody says: “As against the promise of millions of new jobs under Modi, the Indian economy employed fewer people – yes, fewer people – in 2018 than in 2012.”
Of the future staring India in the face, Mody says: “India started with hope. Can India still deliver on that hope? Or is it too late to repair the country’s broken economy and democracy?” Watch the full interview with Karan Thapar for a full understanding of Ashoka Mody’s analysis.
