Rebuttal to 'Modi's Gujarat model: Much ado about nothing'

Mr. Tehseen Poonawalla is a Congress person, so one can expect criticism against Modi/BJP in his blog. But he made some factual error in his comparative analysis. First of all he should have made very clear where did he take his data from? What is the basis of selecting the sates in his comparison study? Even I have done the similar comparison study. My study is based on the latest data taken from the planning commission website, so nobody can point finger at me of fudging the data. I considered the data between FY02 and FY12, since longer period of data analysis provides the better overview of economic activities.

Let me start with per capita income. If one considers the per capita income on absolute term as of FY12 first and second place is occupied by Delhi and Goa. However, I selected six states based on industrialisation, size, SGDP, politics etc. Those states are Andra Pradesh, Haryana, Gujarat, Maharshtra, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Among these states Maharshtra (Rs.64951) and Haryana (Rs.62927) comes 1^st and 2^nd respectively while Gujarat (Rs.57508) comes 3^rd on per capita income as on FY12. When I closely looked at the growth of per capita income between FY02 and FY12, Gujarat grew by 3.2 times, while Maharshtra and Haryana grew by 2.9 and 2.5 times respectively from their FY02 per capita income. At the same time national per capita income grew by just 2.3 times from its FY02 value. Therefore, I can confidently say that author hasn’t done his per capita income comparison study properly.

Now, coming to the state GDP growth rate comparison, author again didn’t make clear which GDP growth data he is using in his study. There are two GDP growth data one is based constant price and another is based current price. Based on constant price GDP growth data, Gujarat growth rate for the period between FY02 and FY12 is 10.1%, which is maximum growth rates out of the for the six states selected. While the same for Maharshtra, Haryana, AP, TN, Kerala and India is 8.85%, 8.94%, 7.83%, 7.76%, 7.98% and 7.71% respectively. Therefore, again the author is incorrect in his analysis.

With regard to state debt, author is not consistent in his selection of states for comparison. This was least expected from one who is analysing the economic parameters. The better way of analysing state debt is considering the debt as a percentage of GDP. On absolute debt value one can’t make any conclusion on health of state’s economy. Therefore, when I had a closer look at the state’s debt as a percentage of GDP for the above six states Haryana has the lowest debt with 17.06% while other states have 20.51%, 25.84%, 18.14%, 19.89%, 28.37% respectively for AP, Gujarat, Maharashtra, TN and Kerala. I also studied the % drop in state debt between FY02 and FY12. Gujarat showed highest drop in debt with 12.94% while the same for other states is 10.53%, 10%, 10.61%, 6.36% and 9.53% respectively for AP, Haryana, Maharashtra, TN and Kerala. A study of fiscal deficit also showed that Gujarat performed better than the other states with 2.16% of GDP. Below table gives the overview of economic parameters for six states considered in the comparison study.

Now coming to the 2002 riot, author should keep in mind that no court so far held Modi guilty of anything, rather SC appointed SIT given clean chit in its report submitted to the court. Therefore, I would rather believe in the SC monitored agency and wait for the court verdict than the opinion of a Congress person/supporter. Similarly, in case of fake encounter cases, why Congress government is objecting the court’s decision to set up SIT to investigate all the fake encounters took place in the country? Why is this double standard? Congress proclaims to be secular why its leaders always defend the alleged terrorists and belittle country’s intelligence agency? 

Response to: ‘Am I anti Hindu?’

Dear Digvijaya Singh,

I read your blog on ‘I am I anti Hindu?’ I out rightly appreciate for clarifying that you are a practising Hindu. However, why did you choose to clarify your faith now? If Sanghis or paid professional’s propaganda is the reason, then you shouldn’t have waited so long to clarify your position.

Mr. Singh, you begin by saying you are the most abused person on social media. I tend to disagree with your claim and also no person in public life has abused you so far. On the contrary you and your party abuse your political opponents openly by calling rat, monkey, snake etc. Your follower Amaresh Misra calls for murder and rape on social media and comes on TV to defend his call. I haven’t seen any of such acts by Sanghis or paid professional propagandists.  

Dear Mr. Singh, I am also a practising Hindu and was given Diksha by Shankaracharya Math in Coastal Karnataka. As I learnt from Sanatan Dharma, it becomes my duty to protect my faith when my faith is denigrated and false propaganda is spread. You claim yourself to be given Diksha by His Holiness Jagadguru Shankaracharya of Dwarka, that I respect, but you go on to make comments about Hindu/saffron terror after every bomb blast. Aren’t you disrespecting the saffron cloth worn by great Jagadguru Shankaracharya of Dwarka and other maths? Being a Hindu does Sanatan Dharma teach you to make such irresponsible and disrespecting comments?

You said that as a good practising Hindu it is your duty to stand up to all the falsehood the Sanghis and their paid professionals are spreading against Muslims Christians and other Minority Groups. Mr. Singh, I come from coastal Karnataka where literatures and books on denigrating Hindu Gods and Goddesses are spread by certain minority group. Why did you fail to stand up to such false propaganda against Hindus? I am sure you are aware of Dr. Zakir Naik, who spreads false claims and propaganda against Hinduism through peace conference and TV discourses. You turned blind eye to his blatant propaganda, not only that you came to his TV programme to appreciate him. Why didn’t you stand up to Dr. Zakir Naik’s false propaganda against Hinduism? You proclaim yourself as a good practising Hindu, but you only stand up to the falsehood spread against Muslims, Christians and other Minority group. Why didn’t you stand up to the falsehood spread against Hindus by certain minority groups? As a good practising Hindu, I don’t think you should be having such a double standard. Because, Sanatan Dharma teaches Hindus to stand up to any falsehood against anyone/any community/any group.

Mr. Singh, you make derogatory comments against Lord Ram and claim yourself to be a good practising Hindu, isn’t it contradictory? As a Hindu I am really appalled to see such a comment from a responsible public person. Hindus have seen such double standards from you and your party, and there is a silent disquiet among Hindus. It is this disquiet making you to clarify your position and trying to project Hinduism and Hindutva are different. However, there is no difference between the two.  

Rebuttal to 'The Moral Ambivalence'

Mr. Sanjay Jha’s writing on moral ambivalence coming from a person who belongs to a party which doesn’t have morality at all. He starts the article with narratives on Mrs. India Gandhi. But conveniently forgets that same Gandhi imposed emergency in the country and put thousands of people behind bar. He conveniently forgets to talk about Mrs. Gandhi’s decision to hold election in Assam after horrific the killings of innocent Muslims in Nielle under centre’s watch in spite of the opposition from the election commission. Again he forgets to add in that Mrs. Gandhi famously told while campaigning in north eastern state that state will be run as per Bible. Look at Mr. Jha’s moral ambivalence here, he proudly states that allegation on Mrs. Gandhi regarding misuse of the official machinery was cleared by SC, but at the same breath he wants to pronounce Mr. Modi guilty in spite of not a single court in the country found him guilty even after 11 long years of investigation. I want to ask Mr. Jha, did Mrs. Gandhi resign based on moral ground or Allahabad HC’s judgement? If it was based on the court judgement, which court pronounced Mr. Modi guilty of any wrong doing? Does country has separate legal system for Mr. Modi, where he is presumed to be guilty until proven guilty in a court of law? What kind moral ambivalence Mr. Jha is talking about?

I am really baffled by the argument that since riot took place under Mr. Modi’s watch; he is not eligible to talk about the good governance. If I extend the same argument even Congress CMs like Tarun Gogoi, Ghelot and Pratviraj Chavan are not eligible to talk about the Good Governance. However, BJP ruled states have not seen a single riot after 2002, which is contrary to the Congress ruled states. If I take pre 2002, horrific killings of minorities took place under Congress’s watch whether it is 1984 anti-Sikh riot, 1989 Bhagalpur riot, 1983 & 2012 Assam riots etc. This list is endless and these riots show that the Congress pathetically failed protect the citizens especially minorities. Unlike other riots, 2002 Gujarat riot has been investigated thoroughly by SC appointed SIT, which gave clean chit to Mr. Modi. By rejecting it and questioning the integrity of the SIT, Mr. Jha displaying his disrespect to institution and his way is the highway. In addition Congress even failed take any action against their leaders involved in the any of the riots and continuously disrupting the legal process.  

Now coming to Rambo act, BJP spokesperson has rightly said it is rather good to be a Rambo than to be a Dumbo and Scambo. If 15000 was not the right number of pilgrims rescued by the Gujarat government, why didn’t Mr. Jha present the right number in his article? The fact is even UK state didn’t know how many pilgrims were there, how many died, how many are missing and how many are buried? Funny thing is Congress party’s ‘YUVA RAJ’ went to UK in spite of HM’s suggestion of not to allow VIP’s visit. Look how bad omen this ‘YUVA RAJ’ is, the day he visited, IAF aircraft crashed, which resulted in loss of life. Also, ITBP had to evacuate their jawans from their guest house to provide security the ‘YUVA RAJ’. Is this the kind of morality and ethics Mr. Jha is talking about?   

Mr. Jha’s observation on Mr. Modi’s idea on ‘less government and more governance’ is totally misunderstood. I would advise him to listen to the speech given by Mr. Modi in the ‘Think India’ discussion conducted by TV18. Mr. Modi clearly mentioned that he didn’t mean ‘Less Government’ as reducing the size of the government, instead having right size of government at right place/department. Mr. Modi explained this with an example as well. But people like Mr. Jha don’t get these ideas because of their intellectual bankruptcy.  

Now coming to malnutrition, farmer suicides, poverty ratios, woeful education levels, and other social and human development indicators. Mr. Jha is presenting as if only Gujarat has these problem. In most of these parameters Gujarat performed better than the Centre governed Congress. I am presenting comparison of some of these parameters which were taken from the Planning Commission website. I don’t have to comment anything on these since the data speaks for itself. I expected at least a data based analysis than mere rhetoric from Mr. Jha. I will do more comparison studies based on some more parameters in the coming days.

Sate	Avg_GDP_Growth (%, FY02-12)	Per Capita Income as on FY12 (Rs)	Unemployment Rate (per 1000 persons)	Literacy Rate Growth (%, btwn 2001 to 2011)	Safe Drinking Water (%)	Malnutrition (%)
Gujarat	10.10	57508.00	10	10	90.3	38.77
India	7.71	38037.00	38	9	85.5	41.16

Mr. Jha talks about Mr. Modi making frequent visits to FICCI/CII. Why does PM attend annual CII meeting every year? Who is stopping ‘YUVA RAJ’ from making frequent sojourn to FICCI/CII and project himself as messiah of middle class? When he was invited to give speech in CII, he made mess of it without giving any hope to industries and telling them that if industries have any problem don’t ask for PM’s help. If this is the kind of leaders projected by Congress, definitely any sensible person wouldn’t be excited/happy. The reality is even after the country is headed by an economist PM MMS, growth is going down, foreign exchange reserves is going down, inflation is high, rupee is depreciating, current account deficit is high, fiscal deficit is high, unemployment is growing, PMO is not aware of the decisions taken by his ministers etc. On the contrary in the past decade Gujarat’s growth is above the national average, agriculture growth is nearly 10%, 72% of the country’s employment was created by Gujarat etc. If Congress leaders lost the opportunity and Mr. Modi provides the hope for good future, Mr. Jha should be blaming his party itself not Mr. Modi. One more point I wish make here is that most of the corporates have businesses in Maharastra, which is ruled by Congress for past 14 years. What was stopping Congress CMs to get the confidence of these corporates? Is Mr. Jha saying that people of the country are fools to be hoodwinked easily by a leader who shows close proximity to the corporates?

The fact is Congress fooled people of the country through vote bank politics. Mrs. India Gandhi came up with slogan ‘Garib Hatao’, she couldn’t achieve anything but entitlement based schemes. This divided the country based on caste and religious line. According the Planning Commission date 29.8% of the population is below poverty line which includes Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, Parsis. India can’t be a developed country until every citizen is brought above the poverty line. Why couldn’t Congress come with a holistic approach based on income for the poverty elevation instead of caste and religion based schemes? Can Mr. Jha through some light on this?   

Economy Comparison: NDA vs. UPA

This week UPA completed 9^th year in the office and general election is less than a year. Therefore, this is a good time to have a look at the economic performances of the current UPA government at the centre and compare against the previous NDA government. This comparison is required because various opinion polls conducted across the country showed that NDA is ahead of the UPA and it gives an opportunity for the people to make an opinion of their own based on the comparative data. The present article discusses the GDP growth, consumer price index inflation, fiscal deficit, current account deficit and external debt. These parameters broadly define the economic condition of any country. Data used in this article are from planning commission website for the financial year from 2000 to 2012. Data from Financial year 2000 to 2004 are considered for NDA regime and same from financial year 2005 to 2012 are considered for UPA regime. 

The comparison of GDP growth and Consumer Price Index (CPI) Inflation between NDA and UPA government is presented in Figure 1. During the NDA period average GDP growth was 5.9%, while same during UPA period was 8.3%. The growth comparison between NDA and UPA clearly shows that the GDP growth during UPA period is 2.4% higher than the NDA period. However, the comparison of consumer price index inflation between NDA and UPA regime gives an interesting result. The average CPI inflation during NDA period was 3.9%, while same during UPA period was 7.7%. This shows that NDA government did good job in controlling the inflation, which resulted higher wealth creation than UPA government since the difference between the GDP growth and the CPI inflation for NDA government is 2 % as against the same for UPA government is 0.6%.

 

 Figure 1: GDP and Consumer Price Index Inflation Chart

 A comparative study of fiscal and current account deficit and external debt was also carried out between NDA and UPA governments, which are presented in Figure 2. The average fiscal deficit during NDA regime was -5.3 % of the GDP, while the same for UPA regime was -4.6 % of the GDP. However, the average current account deficit during UPA government was -2.0 % of the GDP, while the same during NDA government was 0.5 % of the GDP.  From this comparison it is clear that UPA government maintained lower fiscal deficit than the NDA government. In case of current account deficit, NDA government maintained surplus cash for short term expenses unlike UPA government. The average debt to GDP ratio during NDA government was 22.9%, which is lower than the same during UPA government with 29.8%.

Figure 2: Fiscal and Current Account Deficit and External Debt Chart

Overall, NDA regime resulted in creating more wealth by maintaining lower inflation, surplus cash for short term cash expenses and low external debt. On the contrary, UPA regime resulted in lower wealth creation due to high inflation, more borrowings for short term expenses and high external debt.