The X Factor
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Independence Day address puts women front and centre of the national discourse. EPISODE #139
Dear Reader,
A very Happy Monday to you.
Last week was a watershed moment for this newsletter.
I am delighted to share that the episode on ‘Wealth Effect’ caught the attention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. I am honoured, humbled and inspired.
Grateful the PM drew national attention to so-called niche subjects I write about every week. Though they may not be sexy enough for mainstream media, I believe they are trends that capture the ongoing structural makeover of India. It is an incredible story about the world’s most populous nation reinventing itself.
A warm welcome to the new readers, who heard about this newsletter from the PM’s social media broadcast. Do spread the message about this weekly newsletter among your friends and family too.
It is the support from you dear reader that has kept me going week-after-week. Grateful.
Now, back to business.
I am not sure how many of you recall PM Modi’s debut address on Independence Day in 2014. There was one outstanding takeaway: The promise to provide toilets to every household in India. At that time around 600 million people were defecating in the open, primarily because of the lack of an accessible toilet facility.
But it was not just about ensuring hygiene. It was also to provide dignity and security, especially to the women in every household.
Ten years later PM Modi sharpened this commitment to empower women. To me this is the big takeaway from his address this year. Yes, the implicit claim in his speech that the government will win a record third term got the headlines.
This week I explore the X factor and how it is a key part of the evolving narrative of New India. Do read and share your feedback.
A big shoutout to PM Modi, Balesh, Sidhartha, Premasundaran, Aashish and Vandana for your informed responses, kind appreciation and amplification of last week’s column. Once again, grateful for the conversation initiated by all you readers. Gratitude also to all those who responded on Twitter and Linkedin.
The cover picture is the unfurling of the Indian national flag at this year’s Independence Day and sourced from Press Information Bureau.
Unfortunately, Twitter has disabled amplification of Substack links—perils of social media monopolies operating in a walled garden framework. I would 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😊.
Her India
Addressing the nation on the country’s 77th Independence Day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said,
“The additional power of women-led development will take the country towards further progress.
Today, India can proudly say that if any country in the world has the highest number of women pilots in civil aviation, it's our nation. Whether it's the progress of Chandrayaan or the moon missions, many women scientists are at the forefront.”
And, then added:
“…When I put forward the matter of women-led development in the G-20, the whole G-20 group acknowledged its importance. And by acknowledging its importance, they are giving a lot of emphasis on it.”
This is not a one-off remark.
Like I pointed out in the introduction, the genesis of this strategy can be found in the first Independence Day address when the PM promised a toilet in every household. The Swachh Bharat campaign that followed has ensured near saturation level coverage—we may quibble about the quality etc, but can’t deny the coverage.
More recently the government signalled that next year’s Republic Day Parade, the 75th anniversary of India becoming a Republic with the adoption of the Constitution in 1951, will have only women participants in contingents—marching, playing the band and on the tableau during the parade on Kartavya Path.
It is a powerful and unambiguous signal to India (and the world) about the central role for women in the future of the country.
A hint of things to come was evident in this year’s parade too.
Besides an armed police battalion of women officers belonging to the Central Reserve Police Force, the Indian Navy’s tableau stood out. It defined by the theme of Nari Shakti—you may recall that an all-women crew undertook a surveillance sortie in a Dornier aircraft last year.
Remember that, since 2014, the housing for all scheme, cooking gas connections and so are all being given by the government in the name of the women in the household.
The PM’s address also reiterated the government’s audacious commitment to create 2 crore ‘Lakhpati (or millionaire) Didis’ in villages by further empowering self-help groups (SHGs).
“Today 10 crore women are involved in women self-help groups and if you go to a village with women self-help groups, you will find bank didis, Anganwadi didis and didis who distribute medicines.
And now my dream is to create a base of 2 crore lakhpati didis in the villages.”
It is more than apparent that the government is slowly and steadily scaling the empowerment of Indian women.
Her Money
Three days after the PM’s address, the union government released the latest update on a nine-year old initiative: Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana or the policy to provide no-frills bank accounts to the unbanked.
It revealed that 50 crore people now own a Jan Dhan account—further shrinking the proportion of unbanked. Of this:
56% accounts belong to women;
67% accounts have been opened in rural/semi-urban areas.
This is not just about rural women or the unbanked women. Instead there is a larger narrative.
One, that is slowly and steadily rewriting gender rules in India. Anecdotally we are witnessing this growing gender parity in our workplace. Now the effort is to address another big gap in promoting savings and investment among women.
Besides the mindset-reset that is already underway, there is an urgent need to reorient existing savings/investment options to accommodate the peculiar needs of women. As a regular reader of this newsletter you will be aware that I have touched on this theme in the past.
Shinjini Kumar, co-founder of SALT (mysaltapp), a platform for women buying financial products, had very insightfully laid out this argument in an interview granted to me previously.
“Financial services overall have selection and elimination criteria across products. There are eligibility conditions, ticket sizes, fee structures, AML questionnaires etc. So, there is a lot of discretion to the supply side.
And who determines and implements these eligibility and gating conditions? It is largely the male, elite world. As a result the minorities, including women, tend to get excluded.
Second, lifestyle choices and constraints of women are very different from men. For the same job, women get paid less; more women take career breaks for family reasons. More women drop out of the workforce and often don’t come back. Also more women find it hard to start a new business, access credit or VC funding. Fewer women own assets for providing collateral.
This influences your choices, usage and consumption of financial products. Because you are different, your lifestyle is different, source of money is different, quantity of money is different, your allocation of investments, your need for saving or insurance are likely to be different too.
Hence the need for different products and solution.”
As I explained then, a new constellation of circumstances—the convergence of rapid adoption of FinTech and the growing aspirations among women—is setting the stage for reinventing the business of personal finance.
Probably for the first time ever the strategy of one size fits all can be abandoned and the savings and investment needs of women be aligned to their often unique on-off work trajectories.
The New Gender Story
The good news is that sustained efforts over the last two decades has begun to manifest itself in the gender numbers.
The above graphic sourced from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) reveals that the sex ratio for the total population went up from 991 females (per 1,000 males) in 2015-16 to 1,020 in 2019-21. Similarly, in the same period, the sex ratio at birth improved from 919 to 929.
Another positive makeover, visible from the NFHS data, is that the literacy gap between men and women is shrinking.
But let us not forget, even at this level, little over one in four women in India are illiterate—the proportion among males is just under a fifth. And this 75 years after Independence!
Yes, we are still far away from achieving 100% literacy—unlike Mexico, which was 100% literate in 2000. We can take heart from the fact that the burst of policy moves and recent data suggest that India’s gender story is witnessing a long overdue makeover.
In fact, the cohort of women are emerging as a very important political constituency too.
Exit-polls show that the majority of the women voted for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance in the two general elections of 2014, 2019. However, their vote cannot be taken for granted, as we recently witnessed in Karnataka, where women voters overwhelmingly backed the Congress. Either way it unambiguously demonstrates their clout.
Time for everyone to wake up and smell the coffee.
Recommended Viewing/Reading
Sharing the latest post of Capital Calculus on StratNews Global.
Three years ago, before the Russia-Ukraine conflict broke out, imports from Russia in India’s total crude oil imports was in single digits. Last month it touched a record 40%! In fact, Russia replaced Saudi Arabia and Iraq as the primary source of crude oil imports. All of this while Russia continues to face sanctions imposed by a block of Western nations led by the United States.
Even better, India is importing crude oil at rates lower than international prices and then exporting the value added products like diesel at prevailing market rates—providing Indian refineries a healthy mark-up.
How did India pull off what some describe as India’s oil heist? To answer this and more we spoke to Harsh Pant, Professor of International Studies, King’s College, London.
Sharing the link below. Do watch and share your thoughts.
The day after PM Modi flagged last week’s newsletter on social media, several newspapers acknowledged the same in their news reports.
Sharing a sample from the Times of India.
Till we meet again next week, stay safe.
The progress of a country will be largely dependent on the extent of inclusion of it's women, in all spheres of activity. I firmly believe in this and this Government has realized this even more. The inclusion of women in the armed forces is increasing by the day. We see a lot of top scientists in ISRO and women leaders in banking and business. The female toppers in Board examinations and Civil services is more the rule than exception, since quite sometime. It is evident that women have been lacking opportunities in the past. Increasingly it is being felt that women employees are more loyal and trustworthy. However, as mentioned, we have a very long way to go for a total change of mindset and social behavior. An excellent article indeed Anil 👏 👍 👌
Dear Anil
Heartiest Congratulations for such a great honour by the PM. No small feat and a well deserved appreciation. Like you rightly pointed out, you focus on niche subjects which may not be attractive for mainstream media. However, this is a true reflection of what is happening in our country.
I do recall PM Modi's first Independence Day address when he first introduced the topic of providing toilets to every household in India. Everyone was shocked that a PM would talk about such an issue which had never been mentioned by anyone before. There was also a lot of mockery that such topics are not meant to be discussed at all. This one issue did set the tone for the development in the years to follow. The focus was already on providing dignity to the women of India. Later on it was a natural progression towards providing financial independence to women. The availability of drinking water, cooking gas etc affect everyone but women bear the maximum inconvenience due to the lack of these basic amenities which we generally take for granted. It is most heartening to note that even the set ratio has changed. As a lady myself, I really appreciate the changes favouring women. Things which were considered unimaginable till a few years back are also being achieved now. This just proves that if the intentions are noble, no hurdle is insurmountable.