Last month, Narendra Modi became the country’s longest serving elected Prime Minister. He left behind freedom-fighting hero Jawaharlal Nehru, who had served in office for 4,398 days after the first general election. Although Nehru had led India for five years before that and Indira Gandhi also remained the Prime Minister for a longer period in total, but not continuously. Modi undoubtedly ranks among the three most influential leaders of independent India. Modi has already led India’s deepest ‘re-alignment’ since 1947, which has seen us make dazzling progress in economic modernization and development. However, we have also faced challenges on the question of independence of institutions and protection of minorities. Modi’s greatest achievement has been the creation of cutting-edge technology and infrastructure, which has fundamentally changed the lives of more than 1.4 billion people. Before Modi became Prime Minister in 2014, crores of Indians were outside the formal banking sector. Their reliance on informal alternatives had encouraged corruption. Building on initiatives started by his predecessor Manmohan Singh, Modi put in place a new system that bypassed traditional banking structures. Instead zero-balance bank accounts (Jan Dhan Yojana), biometric identity cards (Aadhaar) and mobile numbers were added. This ‘JAM’ trinity is what gave rise to UPI, a public, real-time payments protocol that enables instant transactions for everyone from roadside vendors to tech giants. This approach also made possible the expansion of the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) system, under which subsidies and benefits are deposited directly into the bank accounts of beneficiaries. Since its launch in 2013, DBT, along with other welfare schemes, has helped lift approximately 25 crore people out of poverty. This system has also curbed corruption by eliminating middlemen. However, other sectors of the economy are still not free from corruption. War-level readiness has also been shown for infrastructure development and there has been record-breaking investment in highways, airports and high-speed rail networks. Ports are being modernized and expanded. Electricity has been supplied to the villages. Clean piped water has been delivered to more than 10 crore households – previously dependent on community wells. But Modi has followed Nehru in foreign policy. Rather than adopting partisan stances in global geopolitical rivalries, he has maintained India’s long-standing commitment to strategic autonomy and advanced the principle of ‘multi-alignment’. Of course mistakes have also been made. For example, India should have positioned itself as a neutral party and potential mediator in the Iran war, rather than allowing the perception that it was on the side of the US and Israel. On the other hand, the Hindutva approach tries to base India’s cultural identity on the Hindu heritage of 80% of the population. For India’s Muslim and Christian minorities this has contributed to a growing sense of social and political marginalization. Critics also warn that India’s pluralistic safeguards are being weakened. The government has also been criticized for weakening independent institutions. India is undoubtedly the world’s fastest growing major economy, but not enough high-quality formal sector jobs have been created for the millions of youth entering the workforce every year. So overall, India under Modi has been neither a pure economic miracle nor a simple case of democratic decline. We are an ambitious, powerful country forging our own path. The world will have to accept us only on these complex terms. India under Narendra Modi has been neither a pure economic miracle nor a simplistic case of democratic decline. This is an ambitious, powerful country that is forging its own path. The world will have to accept it only on these complex terms. (@ProjectSyndicate)
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Shashi Tharoor’s column: One-sided understanding cannot work on today’s India
