EXTERNAL ACTORS SEEK TO DERAIL INDIAN GROWTH STORY

The core of the plan is to shift government’s focus from development to fire-fighting.

Aware that India breaking through the “growth barrier” and entering a period of stable double digit growth will transform global geopolitics by creating a new pivot in Asia besides the existing giant, China, numerous groups are working quietly and efficiently to ensure that the India story gets derailed. This is sought to be achieved by lowering public morale and confidence, ensuring administrative sclerosis through delayed decisions, and by fuelling public unrest that detracts from the “Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas” narrative of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Interestingly, thus far the BJP government has moved with cautious conservatism so far as administrative change is concerned, preferring to rely almost entirely on the systems and personnel inherited from the past. RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan has carried forward the tight money, high interest rate policy of his two immediate predecessors, and this has fused alongside conservative North Block policies to create job growth below the level needed for societal sta- bility in a country comprising largely of the young. The emphasis on higher and higher taxation now, rather than adopting a policy of lower tax rates leading to high growth in future (introduced by the UPA during 2006-2007) has impacted the services sector, which has been growing with reduced momentum as a consequence. Manufacturing has been affected by high interest rates, while such irrational UPA policies as asking the buyer (Vodafone) rather than the seller (Hutchison Whampoa) to pay the TDS (tax deducted at source for a transaction) or making retro- spective changes in taxation remain to be fully corrected. Although several experts have been pointing to the harmful effects of such measures, thus far the bureaucracy seems resistant to make the significant changes needed to rectify the harm done during the UPA period, confining itself to adjustments at the margin.

Change at the Prime Minister’s Office (which has regained under Narendra Modi the autonomy and primacy that was lost during the UPA period) needs to be replicated by similar dynamism in key ministries such as Home, HRD and Finance. In particu- lar, most of the chokepoints set up to slow activity down that were added to during the UPA period need to be dismantled at an accelerating pace. The RTI needs to be strengthened and whistle blowers given protection, together with free speech and the protection of democratic freedoms in lifestyle. Also, until horizontal inductions take place in the higher bureaucracy of domain specialists on fixed term contracts, and a comprehensive weeding out through forced retirement of corrupt and incompetent officials takes place on a biannual basis, it will be dif- ficult to counteract the carefully planned and well funded moves that are in play to ensure that the country moves towards a situation which more closely resembles that prevailing in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

While the ISI and GHQ Rawalpindi more generally are lead players in the planning and implementation of such efforts at sabotaging the future of India, there are a miscellany of other interests as well, including religious and corporate. Within not only the GCC countries, but the EU and the US, there