PM Modi @ 11

While Prime Minister Narendra Modi's legacy is yet to be written, it is clear that he has inspired a fundamental reset in India's polity. EPISODE #228

Dear Reader,

A very happy Monday to you.

Last week, Narendra Modi completed 11 years as the Prime Minister of India. Even his critics will be loathe to admit it, but this has been a remarkable tenure in office. One in which the rules of governance, including with respect to foreign policy, have witnessed a fundamental reset.

Baba Kalyani, Chairman and Managing Director of Bharat Forge, summed it up most candidly. Talking in the context of Operation Sindoor to StratNews Global last week, he said:

“The best thing that has happened to India is that we have Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister. I would shudder to think if it was somebody else.”

This week I will examine PM Modi’s eleven years in office. The cover picture is sourced from the Press Information Bureau.

Happy reading.

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The Modi Era

Eleven years ago on 26 May, Narendra Modi took charge as the Prime Minister of India. Ahead of the oath taking ceremony, Mint, the paper I then worked for, published a walk-up package, including a comment piece by yours truly.

Sharing a screen grab of the front page on 26 May, 2014:

I went out on a limb in the opinion piece and argued that the Modi era would see a sea change in the country’s polity and that India would have to change to align with the Prime Minister.

“If there is one thing that’s obvious from the seemingly uncompromising nature of Narendra Modi’s personality, it is this: India and its institutions, long used to operating, especially in the coalition era, without a strong political anchor, will have to recalibrate the way they work.

This will inevitably redefine India’s polity, with attendant consequences. Whether this will be for good or bad can only be assessed in retrospect. For now, all we can say is that it is different.”

This assessment was based on the manner in which a Modi-led Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) had rewritten the rules of Indian politics to carve out an audacious win—it was for the first time in 30 years that a government with a single party majority was elected to power—and expand the party’s footprint to states one could never have imagined.

Since then, the BJP has replaced the Congress as the political anchor of the country with attendant consequences.

A New Polity

It is more than apparent that in the last 11 years, the principles of governance, which define a country’s polity, has undergone a massive makeover. In turn this has influenced how power is organised and exercised within India and in defining relationships with the rest of the world.

If you recall, from the very beginning in 2014, it was clear that political precedence would not determine governance in the new regime. Modi showed the courage and will to drop self-appointed front runners like Arun Shourie, Subramanian Swamy, Yashwant Sinha—all of whom, coincidentally, have since evolved into trenchant critics.

While acknowledging political experience and seniority—Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, Nitin Gadkari, Rajnath Singh—PM Modi sought to induct relatively young and inexperienced ministers like Dharmendra Pradhan and Nirmala Sitharaman—both of whom have since emerged as key senior ministers of Modi’s third union cabinet—Smriti Irani and Jayant Sinha.

This was also the first instance of taking calculated risks in office—we had already witnessed it on the campaign trail. Since then, PM Modi has honed this skill in the last 11 years. This was so visible in his decision to take the fight against terror to Pakistan in Operation Sindoor. No previous regime had ever dared to walk the talk against cross-border terror originating in Pakistan.

Similarly, Modi junked precedence in his first address to the nation on Independence Day. Much to the shock of a section of the chatterati, the prime minister pitched for the building of toilets for women in his debut speech.

“There is one thing I want to begin today. There will be a separate toilet for girls in all schools so that our girl students do not run away. I want the MPs to use their funds to built toilets in schools.”

India has achieved saturation in toilet coverage today. Previously, the United Nations had identified India as the open defecation capital of the world with an estimated 600 million indulging in this practice.

Check out the graphic below, sourced from the Swachh Bharat Mission. (ODF Plus State means that a village has not only achieved the status of Open Defecation Free (ODF), but it has also created a solid waste collection and disposal mechanism.)

Sharing another visualisation of this monumental achievement, based on the National Family Health Survey, dataset. This puts the spotlight on access to toilets among the poorest households in the country.

Similar success was achieved in providing other basics like electricity, cooking gas, drinking water and so on. This was complemented by using JAM (Jandhan Aadhaar and Mobile) to create an economic GPS of sorts to direct social welfare spending—cumulatively the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme has saved the national exchequer a staggering Rs3 lakh crore.

This in turn contributed to an acceleration in the decline of abject poverty. I had written about this earlier. Sharing the link in case you wish to re-read it.

I must add that PM Modi has also enjoyed a tremendous slice of luck, thanks to which he has been able to salvage catastrophic missteps. To be sure, the luck factor alone is never a sufficient reason for success.

The best example is the flawed decision to demonetise high value currencies in November 2016. While it was a bold policy move to tackle black money, it had clearly not been thought through—its fundamental premise that black money is held in cash, though it is mostly laundered and held in assets like land, was wrong. The PM’s abundant social capital helped avoid any political damage.

At the same time, demonetisation proved to be the launch pad for digital transactions. Till then UPI based on Aadhaar, had been logging transactions in thousands. Thereafter it witnessed an exponential growth.

Check out the graphic below.

The Formula

The thing is that the incumbent government has worked with the very same tools that failed previous regimes. Ironically, the very same broken system that ensured India eluded every development goal it pursued. The big difference is that they retooled processes to bring in unprecedented transparency and accountability.

Whether it be Aadhaar, DBT, toilets, cooking gas, all of them are schemes that existed in the past. Unfortunately, due to the lack of political will and administrative weakness, these remained broken promises.

I have written about the governance mantra of the Modi regime. Sharing the link below, in case you wish to re-read it.

To be sure not every governance tool has been repurposed efficiently. Babugiri continues to thrive and trip up the best intentions—the manner in which they have been undermining the singular tax reform, Goods and Services Tax, that for the first time economically unified the country, is scary.

This ability to work with what you have, instead of creating a new edifice is probably what explains the success of this regime. After all, there are only a few bad eggs in a basket. I have always believed that the honest outnumber the dishonest—just that the latter punch way above their weight and overwhelm others into either remaining passive or falling in line. Change the odds and you change the outcomes.

In the final analysis, I believe PM Modi’s greatest contribution has been in creating self-belief among millions. Remember that India is overwhelmingly young and at one time a victim of abject poverty—now, no longer. Hence it is not surprising that people are chasing aspirations. By providing some means—it is still a work in progress—to realise their aspirations, the incumbent regime has inspired self-belief.

Given the size of India we are talking about aggregates that top the population of some countries: In the last 11 years, India has banked 50 crore people, provided toilets to over 12 crore households, cooking gas connections to 10.3 crore households, including 5.43 lakh migrants.

This is a record that would do any regime proud.

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Recommended Viewing

Sharing the latest episode of Capital Calculus. (Please note that Capital Calculus has moved to a new home (stratnewsglobal.tech) within StratNews Global. This relocation will take a bit of getting used to—bear with me.)

For decades, India’s North Eastern region was seen as a remote frontier—culturally distinct, geographically isolated, and politically sensitive. Successive governments rarely walked their rhetorical talk on the region. Not any longer.

Today, it is at the centre of India’s strategic, economic, and connectivity vision. Policy focus, infrastructure investment, and diplomatic strategy are converging to elevate the region’s status. The Rising North East summit hosted in New Delhi last week, put the spotlight on the region once more.

I spoke to Soumya Bhowmick, an economic policy researcher who has a domain expertise on the North East to explore how and why the region has become a top policy priority, and how India is reimagining access to the region—both from within the country and across its eastern borders.

Do watch. Sharing the link below.

I am also sharing the YouTube link to the conversation with Baba Kalyani. It is, if I may add, behind a very affordable paywall.

Till we meet again next week, stay safe.

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Thank You!

Finally, a big shoutout to Kapil, Premasundaran, Gautam and everyone else for their informed response, kind appreciation and amplification of last week’s column. Once again, grateful for the conversation initiated by all readers. Gratitude to all those who responded on Twitter (X) and Linkedin. 

Unfortunately, Twitter has disabled amplification of Substack links—perils of social media monopolies operating in a walled garden framework. I will be grateful therefore if you could spread the word. Nothing to beat the word of mouth.

Reader participation and amplification is key to growing this newsletter community. And, many thanks to readers who hit the like button😊.