New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s sixth address from the Red Fort like the first in 2014 has briefly set out an agenda with priorities. Each of the latter would go to determine India’s security, properly understood in all dimensions, and the country’s future. As such, the amplification of the priorities set out into implementable policies for action not just by the government, also seeking public participation in implementation should be the next priority.
Half a dozen policies and programmes were flagged by the Prime Minister. On top was the desire to make India reach a gdp of $5 trillion, a jump from the present $2.8 trillion economy during the next five years. As he himself noted, it is not easy but a dream has been defined like his ‘make in India’ and “swacch Bharat announced in the first term. Unfortunately, this dream has to sail through the current lower than expected growth rate of 6.8 in 2019, against the earlier projected growth rate of over 7 percent. Several structural weaknesses have surfaced in the economy ; like the ailing financial sector, over supply in construction sector, weak manufacturing, distress in agriculture, massive shortage of jobs, shortfall in government’s revenue expectations to the tune of Rs1.6 lakh crore.
The global economic and political headwinds like US-China trade war, Brexit, tension in West Asia are gravely complicating the management of the Indian economy. The global economic growth rate for 2019 has been lowered from 3.6 % to 3.3 %. As the World Economic Outlook of UN points out, climate change, trade wars and financial uncertainty are pulling down global growth. A section of economic opinion is even fearing return of a global recession, unless world leaders take united action to prevent it. Nearly a dozen central banks led by the US Federal Reserve have cut interest rates to ease liquidity. Our own RBI has downscaled India’s growth expectation to 5.9 %, while announcing a significant rate cut to make borrowing for investment cheaper. Fortuitously, international oil price is ruling at $ 60 per barrel, offering the government a major relief.
Three things fire up an economy: investment (private and public), consumption and healthy foreign and domestic markets. For some time now, India has witnessed declines on all three fronts, despite the government’s effort to increase its investment for making up the huge lag in private investment.
The government at the highest level obviously is aware of the huge problems in the economy, while announcing the $5 trillion dream. One has to wait to see how it proposes to overcome the problems in the coming days.
Why $ 5 trillion dream is important? By 2024,India will surpass China as the world’s most populous country : yet it is likely to be trapped in the lower income bracket ($2000-3000 per capita income).If growth does not hike to 8-10 or more percent, the country will not be able to provide jobs to the increased population. Poverty alleviation, infrastructure development, outlays on security all vitally hinge on India growth trajectory in the next five years.
Break on Population Growth
A rather sensitive subject like population stabilisation was picked up by prime minister Narendra Modi. The good news on our population growth trend is that the national average birth rate has fallen to a little above replacement level (2 percent).But the alarming news is that the birth rate (TFR or total fertility rate ) in seven most populous and poor states like Bihar, UP, Odissa and others continues to be very high. Most of the population decline has come from relatively prosperous western and southern states. The population issue is sensitive because the minority Muslims are seen as opposed to family planning on religious grounds and any one in the government mentioning the subject from a prominent platform is viewed as controversial. By putting the population issue upfront, the prime minister has once again shown that Independence Day speeches need not be filled with homilies alone.
Agriculture and rural areas which used to support over 60 percent of the population are no longer able to host them. There is a massive migration from rural to urban areas whose infrastructure like housing, drainage, water and sanitation, transport, health are already over strained. There is a serious environment cost-land and water scarcity- incurred due to fast growing population
Again, one hopes that the government has some immediate, pragmatic plan to take the states and all sections of the population with it in tackling this huge problem ,sidelined after the excesses of family planning drives during 1975 Indira Gandhi’s emergency.
Jalshakti Scheme
Prime Minister Narendra Modi while expressing his solidarity with lakhs of people coping with floods in several states, used the occasion for giving a call for better water management. This came in the backdrop of a NITI Ayog report highlighting that 80 percent of households do not have piped drinking water. About 600 million people daily face serious water access problems. According to the Economist, by exporting huge amounts of farm products like rice and sugar, India is depleting its water resources.
Even while promising to spend more than a lakh of rupees to supply piped drinking water, Modi repeated his call for “one drop ,more crop”, and went on to emphasise the need for less water intensive farming and lesser use of chemical fertilisers. One cannot dismiss this as an off-the moment reference, and I suspects a new drive for promoting less water-intensive cropping methods, including organic farming .Obviously, climate change is forcing itself into some action, as can be seen from Modi’s decision to ban single use plastic and attention to alternatives to plastic packaging.
EoDB or EoL
There was a clever repackaging of the EoDB or ease of doing business perceived as benefitting mostly the businesses into EoL or ease of living. With a turn of phrase, Modi has taken the message to ordinary people. This EoL is a move to lessen the burden of unnecessary laws and rules that dog the common person’s everyday life that is bound to resonate well with the public. While PM has flagged this, he has to coax the states where such burden is heaviest to go after EoL in a mission mode.
District as Growth Center?
There was a pleasant reference to the district in states to be developed as the hub of growth. India has over 650 districts of varying sizes and populations. While Thane in Maharastra has the highest population density, Kaacch in Gujarat has the biggest area. Each district has some or other economic potential that requires harnessing. This idea is not new. After 14 banks nationalisation in 1969,, each district was assigned to a lead bank branch to survey its growth and development potential and tasked to work for the purpose in cooperation with the state administration. Under Janata government ,George Fernandez as the Industries minister had mooted the scheme for setting up District Industries Centres. Such centres were supposed to work as single-window service providers to businesses. Then there was the Planning Commission’s scheme for developing 100s of new growth centres for ensuring balanced development and avoid over-crowding in a few cities as it is happening now. The political short- term interest tend to focus on a few existing cities like Bengaluru for industry and business. Unofficial estimates show that this city population has crossed one crore and political-realty interests are hatching plans to accommodate another 1.5 crore. Bengaluru’s roads are clogged, garbage over-flowing and it is already water stressed.
Driving growth away into hinterland would reduce the attraction of present big cities for people migration and would facilitate a modicum of urban planning. It is a step towards better internal security management as well. A national political will has to be forged for this agenda to take off. At last it has figured on PM’s plate augurs well for the future.
I am taking up last CDS or the proposal to appoint a Chief of Defence Staff that has meaning for external security mentioned in the address. Under the British rule, India did have a CinC or Commander in Chief who reported to the Governor General and the Secretary of State in London. There was also a Defence member (civilian) in the Viceroy’s council. After the adoption of the 1950 Constitution, this designation CinC was ceremonially conferred on the President of India signalling civilian control over defence forces.
In the present arrangement, the three wings of the defence forces-Navy, Air Force and the Army have their commanders. A post of COAS or chief of army staff was created some time ago for inter-services coordination and the senior most serving commander among the three service chiefs occupies this post. More than once during external aggression faced by India, inter-services coordination has showed up as a major gap. In addition to coordination, the need for medium and long – term planning of arms procurement, threats assessment and response to it as a single fighting unit demands a single-window leadership. In both UK and US, a CDS functions as the military adviser to the political executive. As pointed out by the prime minister, the nature of war and security in this digital era and artificial intelligence has changed. The introduction of CDS at the helm of strategic defence matters hopefully should remove the perceived weaknesses in the present arrangement.
However, there are several things to be sorted out before operationlising the new institution, such as clarifying the relationship between the civilian bureaucracy headed by senior civil servants and CDS, National Security Adviser and Council, Scientific Adviser to the Defence Minister, and the political executive. The civilian bureaucracy in the defence ministry is normally expected to offer administrative support and financial advice to the defence minister. Its proximity to the political leadership has not gone down well with the top defence brass.
In Britain, there were complaints that the institution of CDS inserted a new layer of military bureaucracy. The longest serving officer in the post, late Lord Mountbatten reportedly engaged in projects which were of no strategic value.
There was a brief reference to A:370 and 35A removal ,with the reorganisation of the Jammu,Kashmir and Ladkah and Kargil as union territories, followed by the promise of ushering in a new development era in the reorganised territories. The minimal treatment in the speech to an unprecedented step was perhaps because the issue was coming up before the United Nations Security Council, and hence, diplomatically delicate. It was a welcome change that Pakistan went unmentioned in the address, despite provocation from the other side.
Lights and camera are closed: now comes the hard part-action.
By Mr. M. Narendra