Dear Narendra Modi, beware, numbers don't lie

Modi has come to be linked to extreme positions of all hues imaginable - from rabid Hindutva to growth fundamentalism to chest-thumping nationalism to lynch mob justice. It may not entirely be his fault though. He has been trying to hard-sell an image without rough edges ever since he started nursing the prime ministerial ambition. He is gradually warming up to the Muslims and talking of inclusive economic growth. He has even started toning down his jingoistic views on India’s foreign policy keeping with his status as the prime minister candidate of the country’s second largest national party.

[caption id=“attachment_1129789” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Narendra Modi while delivering a speech at SRCC. Agencies.[/caption]

He is not convincing enough, but no one can fault him for not trying to be more statesmanlike in his approach to the bigger world outside Gujarat. The problem, however, is none of his die hard loyalists would stop pinning him down to the image he would like to dissociate himself from.

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So for the Hindutva fanatics he remains the champion of combative political Hindutva, for the growth fundamentalists he remains the aggressive promoter of businesses and for the jingoists he remains the ultimate symbol of macho nationalism.

He now means all things to all people, particularly those of the wrong kind - just check the comments sections in every article on him on social media, you realise how. How he reconciles such extremes without alienating any of his followers as he moves ahead is his problem.

But the fact is the myth-making machinery that has helped him build a larger-than-life image has veered out of his control and got a life of its own. He cannot do much about it now. If someone claims, on his behalf, that he rescued 15,000 pilgrims single-handed from rain and landslide-ravaged Uttarakhand, he has to take the embarrassment with a grimace. But what he certainly can do is not allow further damage to his image from lies, particularly those slipping into his speeches frequently. After his elevation as the party’s official contender for the top job, he would be under sharper scrutiny than earlier and there are chances that rebuttal from the rival camp would be quicker.

Chidambaram’s ‘fake encounter with facts’ jibe in reply to Modi’s claim that India grew at 8.4 percent during the NDA’s rule is a case in point. This is an exaggerated number that has already been refuted by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Parliament earlier. The PM said the average growth rate in the last nine years has been 7.9 per cent, while during the NDA tenure it was less than six per cent. The Finance Minister reiterated that saying the average growth during UPA’s first term was 8.4 per cent and 7.3 per cent during the first four years of UPA-II compared to 5.9 percent during the NDA’s rule.

Modi must go slow about the claim of Gujarat being the investment gateway to India. Contrary to what his hype machinery would assert, according to the Reserve Bank of India’s FDI figures for the decade 2000-2011, Gujarat received about $7.2 billion in FDI while Maharashtra received $45.8 billion and Delhi over $26 billion. States such as Karnataka ($8.3 billion) and Tamil Nadu ($7.3 billion) attracted higher FDI.

The Gujarat growth numbers during Modi are impressive but other states such as Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh and even Bihar have done equally good, even better, too. There are serious issues relating to key development indices in Gujarat - infant mortality and malnutrition among children are at uncomfortable levels and the state has witnessed virtual jobless growth between 2001 and 2011. Of course, there is the problematic communal question, the 2002 riots, the fake encounters and all that. The more Modi flaunts the Gujarat success story, the more he would be confronted with numbers and the reality on the ground.

His achievements, at least on the economic front, are laudable, and there’s little doubt that when it comes to governance he is one of the best chief ministers in the country, but the less he relies on numbers to make a point the better it is for Modi. It only makes him look like one of his online loyalists, who have little patience for veracity of facts and statistics. Moreover, the numbers are meaningless for the lay voter who would like to hear more about corruption under the Congress-led UPA’s rule and issues of good governance.

It’s time for Modi to change his tactic.