Narendra Modi just finished his first year as India's leader. How did he fare?
Did the "Indian Reagan" live up to his promise?
This week is the first anniversary of Narendra Modi's premiership of India.
His election was a big, big deal, for a number of reasons. Modi had campaigned against the corrupt and dynastic culture of India's then-ruling National Congress party. The exhausted Prime Minister Manmoan Singh was being kept on only to make room for Rahul Gandhi, son of two prime ministers, and descendent of the Gandhi and Nehru families. Because Congress had to rely on a fractious coalition of smaller parties, its agenda was often stuck in neutral, and it often had to deal with corruption scandals that it could do little about.
Meanwhile, Modi, leader of the Hindu-nationalist BJP party, had the whiff of scandal about him. He was the chief minister of the state of Gujarat during anti-Muslim riots, often described as pogroms that left hundreds dead, with his government an alleged accomplice. Modi has always been unapologetic about his behavior in those days. But as Gujarat's chief, Modi had also been an ambitious and successful reformer, turning the state into a target for foreign investment — a big deal for India.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
After many years of lackluster Congress rule, Modi swept in in a landslide victory — the first time in modern history that a single party took a majority in the Indian Parliament's Lower House. That, plus Modi's big promises of reform, generated big expectations; some hailed him as an "Indian Reagan."
How has he fared?
The pluses, first.
The economy has done well under his tenure, although that is mostly due to factors beyond his control — mainly the lower price of oil, which weighs dearly on India's oil-poor economy, and the global recovery.
The second plus is that Modi thus far hasn't confirmed the worst fears of those who fret over his sectarian past. Although he and his party are officially wedded to the ideology of Hindutva, or "Hinduness," which connects Indian national pride with Hinduism, he hasn't made any moves to sideline religious minorities, although he hasn't by any means sought to strengthen pluralism and religious liberty in India.
On foreign policy, Modi has also had good moments. He has racked up many airplane miles, going on a goodwill tour around the world, which was mostly well-received. One year in, it's hard to say anything one way or another, except that Modi seems, again, to have reined in his nationalist instincts. There is even talk that he has a good relationship with his Chinese counterpart, and that he might have initiated a rapprochement with India's biggest regional rival, with whom the country still has border disputes.
The third, and biggest plus, is that Modi's image of "Mr. Clean" is still intact. Although he hasn't engaged in a big corruption crackdown, his administration also hasn't been beset by the kind of corruption scandals that bedeviled the previous administration.
The real problem with Modi's administration so far is that so few of the promised reforms have materialized. Some think that Modi is trying to turn his popularity into a majority in Parliament's Upper House before he starts reforming, but in any democracy the most productive time in office is always the first years, so he may have wasted his big opportunity.
Nobody doubts that India needs a number of reforms to tackle its major, and interlinked, problems with corruption, infrastructure, and the red tape that is the legacy of the License Raj, the period when India practiced actual state socialism.
The biggest reform currently underway is to replace India's patchwork system of in-kind hand-outs for the poor — which encourages corruption and graft, as supplies get shipped to some corner of India but never materialize — with cash subsidies. These subsidies, in turn, are to be linked with biometric ID cards: One reason why subsidies never get to their intended recipients is because hundreds of millions of Indians are essentially off the grid. This is a major, ambitious reform, one that plays off India's strengths in IT, and Modi should be commended for continuing to see it through, but it was initiated in the previous administration.
Even as Modi has concentrated power into the prime minister's office at the federal level — one complaint is that most ministerial appointees are there for political reasons, and the BJP has a thin bench when it comes to administrative skills — he is also planning to devolve many powers to the states. In theory, this is a good idea, since it would allow states to compete for the best public policies that would attract the most investment. In practice, it might just entrench local corruption.
The bottomline about Modi speaks to a truth that crosses national borders. Leaders who get elected with landslides usually do so by finding a way to be all things to all people, without committing too much to anyone, becoming a kind of Rorschach Test (see: Obama, Barack H.). Modi was Mr. Hindutva, Mr. Reform, Mr. Anti-Corruption, Mr. Change. These kinds of leaders inevitably raise impossible expectations, only to inevitably let them down once they get into office.
Meanwhile, India is a democracy. What that means is that change is atrociously hard. There are just too many constituencies to quickly ram major reforms through government. But the lesson of history is that while change in democracies is atrociously slow and frustrating over the short run, democracies actually prove better at reform and improvement over the long run.
Modi will almost certainly disappoint. But given its fundamentals, India will still almost certainly overperform over the long run.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry is a writer and fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. His writing has appeared at Forbes, The Atlantic, First Things, Commentary Magazine, The Daily Beast, The Federalist, Quartz, and other places. He lives in Paris with his beloved wife and daughter.
-
Are 'judge shopping' rules a blow to Republicans?
Today's Big Question How the abortion pill case got to the Supreme Court
By Joel Mathis, The Week US Published
-
Climate change is driving Indian women to choose sterilization
under the radar Faced with losing their jobs, they are making a life-altering decision
By Theara Coleman, The Week US Published
-
'A great culture will be lost if the EV brigade gets its way'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Harold Maass, The Week US Published
-
Why Puerto Rico is starving
The Explainer Thanks to poor policy design, congressional dithering, and a hostile White House, hundreds of thousands of the most vulnerable Puerto Ricans are about to go hungry
By Jeff Spross Published
-
China is now just another autocracy
The Explainer On the long-lasting consequences of Xi Jinping's power grab
By Noah Millman Published
-
Is America the main obstacle to peace in Korea?
The Explainer There's only one way Korea would unify — and the United States won't stand for it
By Noah Millman Published
-
Why on Earth does the Olympics still refer to hundreds of athletes as 'ladies'?
The Explainer Stop it. Just stop.
By Jeva Lange Last updated
-
Berlin's wall and ours
The Explainer What that signifier of the Cold War indicates about our unsettled historical moment
By Noah Millman Published
-
The catastrophe in Yemen
The Explainer A Saudi Arabian blockade has left millions of civilians starving, and without fuel or clean water. What is this conflict about?
By The Week Staff Published
-
China's strongman
The Explainer Xi Jinping is China's most powerful leader in decades. What are his plans for the country — and the world?
By The Week Staff Published
-
How to ride out the apocalypse in a big city
The Explainer So you live in a city and don't want to die a fiery death ...
By Eugene K. Chow Published