Modi@11: three big challenges

Complete dependence on US Big Tech; paucity of infrastructure for mobility; and lack of farm produce procurement in pockets of poverty are glaring gaps

         Source: wikimedia.org

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rise has been phenomenal to say the least. Equalling Jawaharlal Nehru’s record of three consecutive national election victories might sound like a statistical milestone, but it is much more than that. Nehru was riding the wave of the national movement that defeated colonialism, and each Congress candidate was more or less a genuine freedom fighter in an idealistic era with no need for fact-checkers. Whereas, Modi’s 2014 victory was a spectacular throwback to the single party rule, which was deemed impossible in an era of coalition governments.

So, any attempt to analyse his achievements and failures in the eleventh year of his prime ministership should also be made in accordance with the grand scale of his political presence across the country, notwithstanding the reduced mandate in the 2024 elections. His successes are many and are well-advertised. So, there is hardly any need to reiterate them. In fact, his greatest success is in keeping the Sangh Parivar in power these last 11 years --- a fact grudgingly acknowledged by the RSS leadership, which has been sulking for long.

However, Modi’s challenges are many, and if they do not get addressed urgently in his third term they may become grand failures:

Complete dependence on US Big Tech

The US has a monopoly control over technology and tech-business in India. The earnings from India of Google, Meta, Microsoft, X, Apple, Amazon and others are not even spoken about in trade tariff negotiations because without these companies and the products they offer, India will come to a standstill. India does not have a single homegrown tech startup that can even attempt to conceive a mobile or desktop operating system. This article cannot be written without MS Word and iOS or published without Google.
 
While in India, an email, a message, a video or an image cannot be sent or received without a Big Tech platform or server, the Chinese have HarmonyOS for mobile applications and have unveiled OpenKylin for desktops. Indians can only drool over the latest Huawei laptops. No Indian can consume and produce entertainment, news or mundane “paper” work for regular home or office use without the US Big Tech hardware, software, servers and platforms. In fact, Google controls the entire Indian digital ad-tech sector worth billions of dollars.
 
So long as this monopoly situation remains, the US administration will continue to fete Pakistani dictators and hyphenate India and Pakistan, humiliating India to no end.
 
Infrastructure for mobility

In the infrastructure sector, the achievements of this government are not mean by any measure. As a railway beat reporter 22-23 years ago, I had reported on the design challenges of the Chenab bridge, which became a reality last week. Yes, it took about 28 years to build this railway line from Jammu to Srinagar. Former Integral Coach Factory General Manager Sudhanshu Mani’s Train 18, which became Vande Bharat is also a feather in Modi’s cap. Something that should have happened at ICF long, long ago.
 
But this is not enough. On February 15, there was a stampede in the New Delhi railway station that killed 18 valid passengers because the railways could not handle the passenger rush either in terms of restricting train tickets or managing space on the railway station platform. It is a great shame that a department which could design the Chenab bridge did not display basic passenger management abilities when they were required the most. If immediate punitive measures are not taken against local officials their apathy towards poor passengers will continue.
 
The eastbound trains from Delhi serve the poorest of poor from Delhi’s slums, who are the backbone of Delhi’s economy. Their bare subsistence-level wages run Delhi-NCR’s factories, offices and homes and it is impossible to imagine life without them. It doesn’t need a design marvel to double the capacity in this trunk route --- simply build tracks overhead and manufacture fully airconditioned coaches.
 
Worse is the case of Mumbai suburban trains, which carry over 70 lakh passengers every day. A few days ago, four passengers died when 12 of them hanging on the footboard fell off. Apparently 7 of them die every day with one of them falling from a moving train. This almost reads like an 18^th century horror story factoid. Total number of deaths on western and central suburban rail networks in the last 20 years is unbelievable --- 51,802. All the suburban trains need to be turned into fully airconditioned coaches within a year.
 
In 11 years, 55,000 kms of new roads have been built, but their quality needs to be audited badly. Landslides during monsoons, literally from the Himalayas to the Arabian Sea, have turned the national highways into a joke. And all this points towards corruption and nothing else. Unless strict action is taken against local officers and the contractors there can never be accountability for the huge amounts of money spent by commuters by way of toll tax.
 
Procurement of farm produce

Odisha’s starvation hubs of Kalahandi, Bolangir and Koraput did not become capable of offering food to its children (instead of selling them for a morsel of rice) because of foreign charity, missionaries or NGOs. The miraculous turnaround happened with government procurement of agriculture produce. That is all that is required of the government to make people stand on their feet and do farming. Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh are great examples of what government procurement can do to lift people with farmlands up from abject poverty. This must be replicated in Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh. Farming should be made remunerative to sustain lives in the villages. The mass migration of the poor from Bihar and UP to Delhi and Mumbai has made the cities burst at the seams. Indian cities do not have the capacity, particularly Mumbai, to build more slums. Life in city slums is nothing that a government should be offering its citizens. 
 
And, of course, Modi’s biggest challenge of job creation will also be addressed while investing in agriculture, which employs the greatest proportion of the workforce in the country.