Modi's Take On 'Inclusive Development'

Modi’s idea of inclusive development rejects the notion that India’s destiny can be controlled by a small group of individuals sitting in New Delhi. 

One of the relatively unnoticed consequences of the NDA government coming to power at the Centre has been the near disappearance of the phrase ‘inclusive development’ from India’s political lexicon.

During the heydays of the UPA dispensation, one would have been hard-pressed to attend any sort of political discussion on the economy and not have been treated to the phrase being bandied about by either the Congress or a like-minded ‘secular’ representative in the discussion.

As far as political and economic phraseology goes, this particular one is just the sort that politicians tend to use when they wish to convey a lot but still retain the option to deny everything later. The Congress and other ‘secular’ parties used it to represent what they saw as the moral superiority of their governments over those of the ‘communal’ BJP.

The message to the electorate was that even if BJP governments performed better than those of their rivals, the people were duty-bound by the ‘Nehruvian Idea of India’ to elect the secular contender. A more specific message that was delivered to the minorities was that during the reign of the BJP, both economic prosperity and social freedoms would be restricted to the Hindus, with minorities being treated as second-class citizens.  

For the UPA, the larger ideal of what they saw as ‘inclusive development’ came to represent the ideological umbrella under which they legislated (and inefficiently implemented) their pet schemes like MNREGA, Right To Education and Food Security among others.

While the UPA may have had their own arguments regarding what did and did not constitute inclusive development, the fact remains that their idea of creating a moral justification for indiscriminate public spending and surreptitiously linking it (without any evidence in support) to secularism, while being politically expedient, was completely flawed and more dangerously, extremely myopic.

For the Congress, solely working in its last few years to prevent the rise of the BJP and Narendra Modi, inclusion never went beyond religious minorities. But, as the Prime Minister has been demonstrating over the past year, the idea of inclusion and the ideal of ‘inclusive development’ is much larger and more powerful than his political opponents ever realized.

Closer observers of the Prime Minister would have noticed that one of the major changes that he has sought to bring about post his ascent to power is in stimulating citizen engagement and partnership in the national developmental process. It is a common theme that runs through all of his pet projects.

First, let us take the example of the Prime Minister’s flagship financial inclusion schemes – from the Jan Dhan Yojana to the troika of the Insurance and Pension schemes that have been launched by the NDA government. None of these schemes are structured in the handout model which the UPA had made the cornerstone of their welfare policies. The Jan Dhan Yojana incentivizes its subscribers to become part of the larger banking process. All of the three Insurance and Pension schemes are expected to be linked to Jan Dhan Accounts (another incentive for prospective Jan Dhan subscribers) and none of the three schemes assure blanket, completely free coverage to its users. The expected premiums maybe low by modern standards but nevertheless it does make it incumbent on citizens to play a participatory role in ensuring their own financial security.

Second, let us look at the Prime Minister’s most publicized and perhaps his most ambitious program – the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. While the government has gotten involved into the implementation aspects like taking up the task of building toilets in schools and also announced financial incentives for individuals and organizations contributing to the program, the most powerful message has been that of the Prime Minister goading celebrities and the larger public to contribute their own time and effort towards cleaning India. Thrusting the concept of social responsibility for cleanliness is by no means an easy sell in India, especially when your name is Narendra Modi. Professional Modi-critics across India who love pointing to shabby public places and repeating that India is still dirty have missed the point. When the Prime Minister picked up a broom on Gandhi Jayanthi, his message to the country was that they should do likewise and not that he would personally come and clean up all of their homes.

In fact, the theme of citizens’ responsibility and ownership runs as a common thread across most other Government initiatives. Programs like the ‘Give It Up’ campaign tried to bring in the same elements of public responsibility into traditionally Government controlled activities like subsidy rationalization.

When the Prime Minister spoke of ‘Start-up India’ and ‘Stand-up India’ in his latest Independence Day address, it was again a call to the citizenry to share the burden of creating economic prosperity in the country, a striking departure from the socialist models of the past when Congress Governments thought that generating economic activity and employment in the country was best left to the babus in the Planning Commission.

While the election results of last May represented a rejection of the Congress approach, the image of a benevolent state is one that still exists in the hearts and minds of most Indians.

In fact, it is this stark difference from previous Governments which makes the Prime Minister’s approach politically risky. Since Independence, partly due to Pandit Nehru’s fascination with the fashionable socialist models of his times and partly due to Indira Gandhi’s cynical leftist policies, generations of Indians have been ingrained with the sentiment of individual helplessness and the expectation of the state to ‘alleviate’ their poverty. The UPA’s numerous schemes of bountiful doles were nothing more than an attempt to exploit this sentiment and position the latest generation of Gandhis in the same light as that of their ancestors – as the controllers of India’s and its people’s destiny.

The Prime Minister is, in essence, rejecting the notion that the destiny of a nation like India can be controlled and directed by a small group of individuals sitting in New Delhi. His signal to the Indian people has been that the way forward for India should be through participatory development – where individuals will have to take some level of ownership in the progress of the nation.

In short, the Prime Minister has looked to have citizens included in both the process and benefits of development rather than just have them part of an ever-expanding benefits umbrella – a truer form of inclusive development than what the Congress could have ever had in mind.

This writer can be contacted at prafulshankar@gmail.com or at the twitter handle @shankarpraful.