‘The Modi Gambit’: A book that helps understand the idea of ‘modified’ India

Jawaharlal Nehru was having lunch with JRD Tata. The then prime minister, being a steadfast socialist that he was, accused the leading industrialist of being obsessed with profit. Tata reminded him that a business couldn’t run without profit. To this Nehru’s response was astounding: “Jeh, profit is a dirty word. Let’s not spoil our lunch by talking about it!” The problem with Nehruvian socialism, however, wasn’t just its distrust for money, but also its over-reliance on the Western economic model, primarily statist socialism, divorced from the realities of eternal Bharat, and its needs, values and aspirations. It is in this backdrop that Nirad C Chaudhuri observed that Nehruvian India was in economic mess primarily because there were so many celebrated economists in the country. India’s economic problems were the handiwork of its eminent economists obsessed with the economic model where the basic human element was missing. The Indian economy was all about statistics, numbers, and graphs. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s real contribution to the Indian economy lies here: That he has brought the human angle to the centre of economic policymaking, while at the same time de-stigmatising the profit-making culture, which started quite accidentally in 1991. This was manifested in a most pertinent manner when PM Modi, on his first Independence Day speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort, spoke about toilets and Swachh Bharat. He, in the same breath, talked about unshackling the entrepreneurial energies of the youth by ensuring ease of doing business in India. Over the past eight years, we have seen the government’s endeavour in bringing Indians, especially poor and downtrodden, into the centre stage of policymaking. With the BJP-led NDA government ‘modifying’ India’s policymaking in all spheres of administration — from economy and foreign policy to defence and politics — it awaited a chronicler that looked at the last eight years dispassionately and yet with an understanding of the dispensation’s ideological moorings. Sanju Verma’s The Modi Gambit attempts to fulfil the twin objectives as it takes a close look at the Central government’s achievements in the past eight years. The book is divided into three parts. The first part talks about the Modi government’s economic policies and reforms, including its attempts at empowering the farm economy, denationalisation of coal, labour code, asset monetisation, eRUPI, IBC and Air India privatisation, banking consolidation, renewable energy push, PM Gati Shakti, among others. The second part is an exhaustive analysis of the Modi government’s fight against Covid-19 and how it could successfully steer the world’s largest vaccination drive despite brazen attempts by the Opposition to ridicule it, and the hypocrisy of international media to run it down. Today, India’s pandemic record is a shining example which even First World nations would aspire to pursue. In this section, the chapter, “Pandemic: India Heals the World, While China Obstructs & Obfuscates”, is specifically engaging and informative as it helps us take a look at Covid-19 from the global perspective. The final part of the book traces “the rise and rise of Brand Modi”. It discusses how CAA is “the enabler”, besides looking at the vibrant Varanasi Model, revocation of Article 370, amendments to FCRA and UAPA, Central Vista Project, the victories in Assembly elections in Bihar 2020 and Assam 2021, the passage of the OBC Bill and, of course, what makes PM Modi the most popular and powerful leader of post-Independence India. The highlight of the third section is the chapter, “Ram, Rashtra and Roti: The New India”, which explains quite eloquently how the Modi government has not just looked to bolster new India’s economic might and geostrategic needs but also revived and revitalised eternal Bharat’s civilisation quest. It’s a work in progress. The Modi Gambit explains why the Modi phenomenon is neither a fluke nor the result of the much-talked-about TINA factor in Indian politics. Narendra Modi is as much the result of the BJP’s massive organisational push carried forward, first, by Amit Shah and now Jagat Prakash Nadda, as it is about the aspirations of the millions of Indians who are at odds with the old politico-economic system based on ‘Parivarvaad’, and the one that tries to curb the bubbling entrepreneurial ambitions of the youth. It is also the rebellion of civilisational Bharat claiming its rightful place in democratic India, which the Nehruvian order worked hard to negate in the name of secularism. Sanju Verma’s book is an important addition to understanding the Modi government and its contribution in the making of a new India in the last eight years. The ‘Introduction’ to the book, written by BL Santhosh, BJP national general secretary, and ‘Foreword’ by Mohandas Pai add further gravitas to the already heavy book. Read it to understand the idea of a modified India. 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