Amartya Sen hailed our great tradition of public debate and its importance in his book The Argumentative Indian. But anyone watching recent developments in India must be wondering what happened to the fabled argumentative Indian. Returning to India after a gap of several years, I’m struck by a conspicuous lack of serious debate—on immediate as well as long-term issues.
There’s a lot of sloganeering on—‘Make in India’ and so on—but slogans, however catchy, are no substitute for clear thinking. Arun Shourie has revealed how the prime minister likes to tell his advisors: “Arey yeh theek nahin hai, kuch dhamakedaar idea do! (This won’t do, give us a sensational idea!)” The result is policies made on the hoof—with an eye on impact, and designed to generate headlines.
Any wonder then that no less a person than RBI governor Raghuram Rajan has publicly questioned the logic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Make in India’ policy. And on grounds that should have been obvious to anyone in the PMO if they had cared to apply their minds—that an export-led strategy at a time of falling demand in the industrialised world doesn’t make sense.
Talking about ideas, where, for instance, is the big idea on foreign policy? All we have seen so far are a lot of ‘dhamaka-style’ stunts and a flurry of foreign tours by the PM, but try asking anyone in South Block what’s the government’s foreign policy vision, and they will struggle to explain it.
Similarly, take education. One would have thought that a government supposedly committed to modernising India would be concerned about tackling illiteracy and improving educational standards. Instead, the buzz is about rewriting textbooks, saffronising academic institutions, promoting Sanskrit, banning non-veg food at iits, and declaring the Gita a “national scripture”, whatever that might mean. The entire education agenda of this government has descended into a series of culture wars. And not just in education. There is a sense that something is not quite right in the state of Denmark. Look at the headlines. It’s all about religious conversions or ghar vapasi; love jehad; provocative RSS-style assertions of Hindu supremacy (Ramzaadey versus haramzaadey); and bogus theories of ancient India’s imagined achievements.
In a country reeling from massive development problems, the debate we should be having, instead, is about social mobility, education and health reforms, better use of manpower and delivering efficient public services.
The PM is fond of citing foreign models of development (Shanghai, Tokyo, Singapore). How about taking a leaf from their culture of policymaking? And listening to the kind of debate advanced nations are constantly engaged in? They have been able to reach the levels of development they have because they have worked for it instead of wasting energy on scoring political points and fighting vindictive culture wars.
Britain, where I live, is a case in point. One former Indian PM dismissed it as a “third-rate nation” but that third-rate country gives millions of pounds in aid to India. And why? Because despite having one of the world’s best public services (first-class universities, a universally free healthcare system, a generous welfare package) there’s endless debate in Britain on improving things further. Not an empty debate—a tu tu, main main—but serious introspection backed by concrete action. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but the important thing is that the government, political parties and the larger civil society are constantly wrestling with ideas. Elections are fought around real issues, those that matter to people, and not on political parties’ whimsical agendas.
Meanwhile, India is drowning in mindless controversies which have become the staple diet of an increasingly coarse public discourse, with ministers, ruling party MPs and activists in starring roles. Many of Modi’s ardent supporters are also beginning to despair. Shourie used a newspaper interview to voice his concern, both over this administration’s lack of direction and the Sangh parivar’s divisive tactics, describing them as a “distraction” from governance. “Development requires focus, and Modi has to ensure that focus, which means you must also control the fringe elements. You cannot talk development in Delhi and love jehad in Muzaffarnagar. It distracts. If love jehad was so dangerous, how did the phenomenon stop after voting in Uttar Pradesh?” he asked, suggesting that it was all about communal polarisation to get Hindu votes.
Another Modi acolyte, Madhu Kishwar, who’d written a Modinama extolling his policies and leadership qualities, has said that “nobody can make sense of all this, neither me nor anyone else.” She told Scroll, a news website: “It’s black magic that somebody has done. I cannot believe this is happening.” Not black magic, Ms Kishwar. Sheer lack of ideas, vision and debate. Bring back the Argumentative Indian. And soon.
(The writer is the author of India’s Muslim Spring.)
