Super Modi? | The World Weekly

On trips abroad, world leaders often choose a political landmark or local monument for their appearances. Not so India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose overseas rallies have seen him address crowds at Dubai Cricket Stadium, Madison Square Garden, and a 60,000-strong audience at Wembley Stadium. These venues, usually reserved for sports stars and pop idols, testified to the popularity of India’s controversial political superstar.

Mr. Modi’s ability to connect with a crowd was a big reason why his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) secured victory in the 2014 parliamentary election. A hectic campaign saw Mr. Modi address over 400 rallies around the country, harnessing social media and even delivering speeches via hologram to reach those he couldn’t meet in person. Those who saw him speak seemed captivated by his charisma. But the prime minister’s brand was more than just hype: his reputation as a hard working, red-tape slashing technocrat, built as chief minister of the state of Gujarat, won him many admirers.

In India’s highest office, however, Mr. Modi faces a wholly different challenge. Ruling a country of over 1.3 billion citizens, the prime minister has to grapple with self-governing states, a hostile upper chamber of Parliament and a host of outdated colonial-era laws. Dogged too by familiar criticisms - that he has authoritarian tendencies and associations with Hindu nationalism - his star power has been put to the test. Three years into his reign, how is Mr. Modi faring?

The efficient leader

Since independence in 1947, Indian politics have been dominated by the Indian National Congress (INC), with a member of the Nehru-Gandhi family commonly either serving as prime minister or party president. But Congress’ reputation has in recent years been marred by large corruption scandals.

Widespread lower level corruption has been facilitated by outdated colonial-era laws, which along with red tape have also harboured inefficiency. In 2012, India’s bureaucracy was rated the worst in Asia by the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy. Mr. Modi’s promise of good governance struck a chord.

The prime minister cultivated the public image of an efficient leader, becoming known as a workaholic who supposedly only sleeps three to four hours every night, and ordering public servants to turn up for work on time. Burnishing this ideal, there is yet to be a major corruption scandal during his time in power. December 25 has been named ‘Good Governance Day’.

Mr. Modi has introduced a genuinely new style of leadership. “He runs a very centralised prime minister’s office,” Atul Singh, an Indian-born former lawyer who is the founder of the Fair Observer online platform, told The World Weekly. “Because everything is now under his iron grip, a lot of corruption at the ministerial level has disappeared.”

The job is far from done as corruption remains endemic especially at local level. A Transparency International report released earlier this year found that seven in 10 Indians have paid a bribe to access a public service. And although Mr. Modi successfully repealed over 1,000 outdated laws, he has not completed the institutional reforms many observers feel would be necessary to truly transform governance in India.

Nonetheless many Indians think the prime minister has breathed new life into a stale and stagnant political system. At home and abroad, he has driven innovation in policy areas often dominated by the traditional global powers. Though India remains the world's third largest carbon polluter, it has pledged to go beyond the Paris Climate Accord even as the US pulled out. Mr. Modi has overseen a huge tree-planting campaign and vowed that India will sell only electric cars by 2030. India’s space agency has also received a funding boost. The successful launch of the country’s heaviest-ever rocket and a record 104 satellites in one go this year boosted national pride.

Mixed results

Although the prime minister threw himself behind the good governance banner he has identified development as the main challenge facing modern India. In the wake of the BJP’s success in state elections earlier this year he said that “development is always a central issue during every election.”

Though some believe Mr. Modi’s economic success in Gujarat is overstated, his supporters credited him with the state’s consistently high growth rates, driven by economic liberalisation, investment in infrastructure and industrialisation. The hope of many BJP voters was that ‘Modinomics’ could be replicated across India.

World Bank figures find that India’s GDP grew by 7.0% in 2016. They project growth to rise to 7.6% in 2017, and 7.8% in 2018.

So far, the results have been mixed. Notable achievements include the introduction of a unified goods and services tax, new laws which smooth the previously complex bankruptcy process, and the opening up of some parts of the economy to foreign investment. Mr. Modi has also heavily invested in infrastructure, building rural roads at a record rate, and vowing to spend $60 billion on infrastructure during the current fiscal year.

But progress has been slower than many had hoped. “There have been several failures to bring out new pro-business measures,” Michael Kugelman, a South Asia senior associate at the Wilson Centre, told TWW. “Modi has been stymied in efforts to produce several tax reforms as well as to pass legislation that would help businesses acquire farmland and give them more flexibility to hire and fire workers.”

Most notably, Mr. Modi’s growth agenda clashed with his anti-corruption drive last year as he invalidated most of India’s paper money basically overnight in a bid to rid the country of fake notes. The move threw Indian businesses into panic, and while the BJP’s success in this year’s state elections suggests voters are unperturbed, economists worry that the demonetisation will harm growth.

At the national level Mr. Modi has been denied the freedom to operate he was blessed with in Gujarat, a state that has historically been friendly to entrepreneurs. The broad powers reserved by states and the control of the Rajya Sabha (Parliament’s upper house) by the opposition alliance have limited his impact. Adding to these woes, an ongoing farmers protest has seen a spate of suicides over the last two years.

Hindu nationalism and authoritarianism

While Mr. Modi’s supporters eagerly awaited a repeat of Gujarat’s economic success, many feared other aspects of his leadership would carry over to the national stage as well. The BJP’s Hindutva ideology, which seeks to establish the hegemony of Hinduism in India, has always been controversial. Famously Mr. Modi was accused of inciting the 2002 Gujarat riots, in which over 2,000 people reportedly died as Hindus sought retribution against Muslims whom they believed to be responsible for the Godhra train burning.

There is some evidence that these fears have been borne out. The US commission on International Religious Freedom reported last year that “threats, hate crimes, social boycotts, desecration of places of worship, assaults, and forced conversions led by radical Hindu nationalist movements have escalated dramatically under the BJP-led government.”

The selection of Hindu hardliner Yogi Adityanath as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh and a ban on the sale of cattle for slaughter in markets is seen by some as an attempt to force Hindu beliefs upon the whole nation. These contentious policies risk dominating the political agenda. “Interestingly, it seems likely that the right-wing Hindutva agenda will be driving his party's politics more than Modi himself,” Alem Ao, a journalist from New Delhi, told TWW.

Heavy-handed rule is another worry. In recent weeks 15 people were arrested for celebrating Pakistan’s win against India in the Champion’s Trophy cricket tournament, and journalists staged a protest after a raid on the offices of local television channel NDTV, viewed as an attack on journalistic freedom.

These incidents do not only constitute human rights violations but are often at odds with Mr. Modi’s twin goals of good governance and economic growth. A ban on alcohol sales within 500 meters of state highways, for example, has seen bars create long, winding queues to get around the regulations - exactly the kind of poorly executed law Mr. Modi was expected to annul.

Restoring confidence

For his critics, Mr. Modi’s worst excesses as chief minister of Gujarat have been replicated as prime minister, and his biggest successes have not. But as the BJP’s recent landslide victory in India’s most populous state Uttar Pradesh shows, Modimania is still running wild.

Is blind hero worship leading the public to ignore the prime minister’s failings? Many certainly feel that Modi’s humble origins as a ‘chaiwala’ (tea-seller) have helped cultivate something of a personality cult. “Poor people in India identify with him,” explains Mr. Singh. “This is the first time we have a lower caste prime minister, this is a stirring story.”

Yet it is also true that Mr. Modi has successfully restored confidence in a political system that was ridden with corruption, infighting and dynasticism. His supporters understand the constraints the prime minister is working under, and are by and large forgiving of a lack of progress. Plus, many who actively dislike his politics still prefer Mr. Modi to a Congress party mired in scandal. Most commentators expect the BJP to cruise to victory in the 2019 parliamentary elections.

This goodwill does however have an expiry date. “Eventually, the population expects him to solve problems,” says Mr. Singh.

If the prime minister does not make real progress on his development and economic reform agenda, ‘Super Modi’ may himself become the villain.