Modi & the WCs

Modi & the WCs

The “wise” critics (WCs) against Modi are a varied combination: politicians, NGOs, economists (including Nobel laureates), editors, media-persons (including those in the foreign ones like The Economist), essayists, the arty-types, the defenders of the “Idea of India”, and the parasitic cabal that has spawned the sarkari establishments, the art houses, the media, the NGOs, and the academe (even universities abroad), namely, the LIDS: Leftist Intellectual Deformists ventilating their Socialistic/Nehruvian, Staid, Stale, Self-Serving, 'Secular' claptrap. Lately, sanctimonious, holier-than-thou, slam-all-abuse-all, lying-is-my-birth-right AAP has also joined the group.

LIDS have also infested the media. It would be grossly unfair not to credit the LIDS along with the Dynasty for taking India to dogs, and for still persisting and resisting attempts to pull India out of the black hole they have jointly thrown India into, by perverting sensible discourse and spreading misinformation. They can’t imagine being dislodged from their cozy positions and are one with the Dynasty in concocting rationale for their joint continuance.

If anyone talks of Modi’s development, they would say (including a Nobel laureate in Economics) it is not inclusive. But, they are careful to make only a concocted generalisation and a sweeping statement. They won’t ever come to specifics and facts and list each item or aspect of Gujarat development and then state whether or not it is inclusive, and if not inclusive, why so? One has to know if 24-hour electricity supply to all urban and rural homes is inclusive or not. Whether drinking water supply to all is inclusive or not? Whether good roads help only the rich? Whether the higher employment on account of increased industrialisation can be considered inclusive or not? Whether annual agricultural growth of over 10% helps or does not help the farmers and the agricultural labourers, and is effectively inclusive?

Ignoring the facts about Gujarat on the ground, and aware that the ruling dispension at the Centre and in many states is incapable of ever achieving those heights, the Dynasty and their supporters, and even the Delhi-deserters AAP, have decided to either deny the facts themselves, or twist them or be selective about them. Or, bring out only the negatives or the deficiencies. While many vital things have been set right, not everything is hunky-dory in Gujarat.  Modi himself does not claim that. What more can be done in a decade. He has done enough, but there are still many things remaining to be done. What is worth acknowledging is that if Modi has not yet done “x” things in Gujarat, most states haven’t yet done “4x to 20x or more”; if he has achieved “y”, others have achieved only “y/4 to y/20 or less”.

And who is AAP to point a finger, who have no practical achievements on the ground to their credit, and who just ran away from governing Delhi. Similarly, have the Congress and the other parties like the SP achieved anything worthwhile to find fault with Modi and Gujarat. “I do nothing or my score-card is negative, but ignoring all your achievements, I would dig out or concoct some shortcomings and would condemn you!” 

Even the MSM—Main Stream Media—won’t do the hard work of going around Gujarat and reporting the facts. Sitting in Mumbai or New Delhi in their air-conditioned offices they would just call a few jokers from the Congress and the NGOs and intellectuals from the anti-Modi brigade, and a person from BJP, to pretend it’s a balanced discussion group, and keep highlighting the negatives on Modi and Gujarat. One is reminded of the book “Mother India” by Katherine Mayo that contained all kinds of negatives on India, and which was termed by Mahatma Gandhi as a drain or gutter inspector’s report. That’s what most of the media and other critics do for Modi and Gujarat. Dig up and report only on the negatives or concoct negatives, ignoring the many, many positives.

The book, “Gujarat: Governance for Growth and Development” by the reputed economist Bibek Debroy of the Centre for Policy Research, Delhi, is worth reading if one wishes to know the facts about Gujarat.

As it is, most of our netas, whether chief ministers or prime minister or ministers at the state or the central level or MLAs or MPs or those who are powers behind the throne, don’t deliver, and most are corrupt and unfit and incompetent for the job. In such a pathetic and miserable setting, you have one person who has delivered—yet you choose to pan him! If this is not intellectual bankruptcy and dishonesty, what is! It is indeed a misfortune for India that most of its so-called intellectuals lack guts and prefer always to be on the right side of those in power.

Many among the WCs are contemptuously dismissive about the so-called Gujarat Model of Development (GMD). Some say it’s not applicable elsewhere, while other WCs say it’s not worth applying anywhere. To get down to brass tacks, let’s forget about the model or the process; let’s only look at its net result: 24-hour electricity thanks to sweeping power-sector reforms post-2001; while Gujarat’s electricity companies are in profit, the cumulative losses of distribution companies in India are over 2 lakh crores(!!); innovative practices in solar electricity generation; piped water-supply; drinking-water to all; good roads—even to villages; increasing industrialisation; over 5 lakh water-management structures; increase in ground-water level; over 10% agricultural growth; grand Sabarmati Riverfront; BRTS; communal peace for over a decade—it’s a long list of positives, unmatched by any other state.

Yet, you wish to reject GMD! Fine! No problem. Follow any model, or invent a new model, just deliver those results. Let Rahul Gandhi and his team feel elated about their name-calling terminology of “toffee” model. But, let’s see the Congress or any other party deliver similar result in any state ruled by them. It’s so easy to talk and be dismissive—an art lately well-learnt by the AAP from the Congress. What matters is whether you can deliver the results on the ground. When the AAP got the opportunity, they invented an excuse and ran away. As for the Congress, they have had over five decades to deliver, but have miserably failed. Yet, look at their utter lack of any shame. They have repeatedly failed, yet they have no compunction in slamming unabashed the one person who has genuinely delivered. And, the parasitic LIDS and a section of the media are happy being willing and shameless accomplices in this game of white lies and misinformation campaigns.

India is desperately in need of being delivered from the dynasties (including those at the states) and the LIDS.