Opinion: Why Narendra Modi's Make-in-India is a Mere Slogan

Today I won’t talk about how the rock star Prime Minister made fun of India’s secularism in Ireland. I will also not talk about that most atrocious statement he made in Korea, when he said that people regretted being born in India before he became Prime Minister. I have failed to understand whether he makes such statements because he has a bizarre sense of humour or then he seriously believes that he is a miracle-man changing India’s destiny.

What I will talk about today is Narendra Modi’s Make-in-India project which was launched a year ago and has had no yield.

Make-in-India is a good concept and it was launched with a lot of fanfare to infuse new vitality in the manufacturing sector. It was an attempt to bridge the vital gap between the Chinese and Indian market. It is a known fact that China broke all rules to emerge as a manufacturing giant in the last two decades.

China was a poor country when Deng Xiaoping took the reins of the country. It was struggling with starvation deaths, political uncertainty and a rotten economy. Social unrest was growing and there was a severe power struggle. Deng realised that outdated ideology would not take the country anywhere. He had to be practical. He was one of the oldest colleagues of Chairman Mao, but he was not a prisoner of a dogma or of the past. His genius lay in the prognosis of the ills which had inflicted China as a society.

Deng’s first formulation was that if China had to grow, then economic development and political stability had to go together and complement each other. He was far-sighted enough, unlike Mikhail Gorbachev later, to see that the Communist Party of China was the only vehicle which would take the country towards economic development. He said Gorbachev was stupid if he thought that political reform would lead to economic reform.

His second formulation was that China had to start from scratch and it had to admit its mistakes and weaknesses first. Deng was magnanimous enough to underline the fact that China lacked basics – it had no technology and the standards of education were very poor. These two areas were his sole focus in the initial years. Unlike Indian leaders, he did not find the departments of science and technology and education unglamorous. He took these two departments under his wings and made them the engine for future growth. He had no shame in borrowing technology from the US, Europe and Japan. And he encouraged Chinese students to go abroad en masse to the best of foreign universities, acquire quality education and then return and contribute to a national resurgence.

In India, unfortunately, these two departments are most neglected. Since Independence, no minister has wanted charge of the science and technology portfolio. No wonder that despite tall claims, India is way behind in scientific innovation and invention.

Education too has been very shabbily treated by our political establishment. There is no uniform curriculum and the quality is much below international standard. No youngster wants to be a teacher and teaching, with a few exceptions of course, seems to be the last resort as a career choice.

When the Prime Minister launched the Make-in-India project and talked about moving decisively in the field of business and economics, I believed that he would start with basics. He would create an ambience in which development did not mean only physical infrastructure. But to my utter dismay he talked about bullet trains, smart cities and highways. Education was not on the radar. Health was also missing. China built huge highways and invested more than 50% of its GDP in infrastructure development, but it also invested in human capital.

For the success of Make-in-India, foreign investment is a must and to become an investment destination, five components are needed – education, health, infrastructure, safety and justice. But here the order has been reversed. The budgetary allocation in education was reduced – the budget of the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan was cut from Rs 27,758 crore to Rs 22,000 crores and the outlay for the Mid Day Meal scheme went down from Rs 13,214 crore to Rs 9,236 crore.

As per data available, the budget  for health care and family welfare has been reduced from Rs 39,000 crore to Rs 33,000 crore. No attempt has been made to improve the law and order situation across the nation. Huge vacancies are left unfilled in the police and paramilitary forces. Despite a Supreme Court ruling, police reforms are still a distant dream.

Judicial reforms should have been of top priority on Modi’s agenda for development. But industrial litigations are taking years to reach any conclusion. Infrastructure development is moving at a snail’s pace. On ease-of-doing-business, India is ranked 142 among 189 countries.

The Aam Aadmi Party government in Delhi has on the other hand, shown remarkable initiative in this area. Many experts sniggered when Arvind Kejriwal advised the Prime Minister that instead of Make-in-India, “Make India” is the motto the country needs to be a future super power. His argument is simple: unless we create an environment where doing business becomes easy and attractive, foreign investment will not flow.

One can visit the Facebook and Google headquarters many times over and shake hands with Mark Zuckerberg, but things won’t improve and Make-in-India will remain a mere slogan.

It is with this thought that the AAP government in its first budget has increased its education outlay by 106% and health by 45%. It has made a plan to build 1000 quality neighbourhood clinics. It has already mapped more than 960 government schools and the effort is to make them at par if not better than any other private school.

The Rs 10 lakh education loan is another such scheme to improve human capital. Arvind is not a rock star and he does not visit Madison Square Garden to grab eyeballs. But his vision is clear and is not loaded with an opaque understanding of realities.

Mr. Modi, first put your priorities in perspective and get a clear idea; the Zuckerbergs will follow automatically. Then, you won’t need to visit them, they will come calling.

(Ashutosh joined the Aam Aadmi Party in January 2014.)

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