Not long after taking over as Prime Minister exactly this day last year, Narendra Modi had a surprising complaint — that the media was unfair to him. The media had been, in fact, overly laudatory. Really speaking, what the PM was doing was to head off the media. When it was a hundred days — the marker for the traditional honeymoon with a new government to be over — since Mr Modi took office, the PM declared he should be judged at the end of five years.
Nevertheless, to mark Mr Modi’s first year in office the government is going on a propaganda blitz. Over 200 public meetings will be addressed by ministers and other senior government and BJP functionaries across India to highlight the government’s “achievements”. MPs have been asked to be in their constituencies to drive home the same message. Finance minister Arun Jaitley has been interfacing with the press on a steady basis over the past week. The PM made a major speech in Mathura on Monday. But the Modi Sarkar appears apprehensive of being judged at the end of its first year.
Even so, after high-sounding promises raised expectations sky high in every section of society, delivery has been lacklustre and the government has come under critical scrutiny even from some key supporters.
The projected economic growth rate looks rosy as the method of computation has been changed. Inflation has come down a shade because the international price of oil is at a five-year low. But little else seems satisfactory. Unemployment is high, investment (on which, in good measure, depends the chance of employment) disturbingly low. “Make in India” is just a high-pitched slogan so far. Exports are low, manufacturing is low. The farm sector is in acute distress across India. The corporate sector, especially big business, that the government is desperately seeking to please has begun to grumble.
In the social sector, there have been deep cuts in health, education and the women and child welfare minister, making Maneka Gandhi, the minister in charge, complain. Under NREGA, there has been a 40 per cent drop in rural employment in 2014-15, compared to two years earlier. More “zero-balance” accounts have been opened, and are called “Jan Dhan Yojana” in their repackaged avatar. But this has not led to financial inclusion. Three insurance schemes have lately been added for the poor, of which two are old projects under new names. There has been much propagation of foreign policy “successes”, but relations with Pakistan and China, India’s two difficult neighbours, haven’t moved up on prime issues. But people are still being patient, on the whole.
