Ashoka Mody
Says More…
This week in Say More, PS talks with Ashoka Mody, Visiting Professor of International Economic Policy at Princeton University and the author of India Is Broken: A People Betrayed, Independence to Today.
Project Syndicate: Much of your recent work exposes the cracks in the foundations of India’s economy – cracks that the government is taking great pains to cover up. Such “brazen unaccountability,” you say, is “corroding Indian politics and society,” and you examine its roots in your new book, India Is Broken: A People Betrayed, Independence to Today. What has contributed to the erosion of accountability in India, and where are the historical milestones of this decline to be found?
Ashoka Mody: In June 1951, just months before independent India’s first general elections, Time magazine described the Congress Party as harboring many “timeserving officeholders” and well-known “black-marketeers.” The early corruption was mainly in government construction contracts.
But from small beginnings, the lack of accountability in India’s government became increasingly pervasive. By the end of Jawaharlal Nehru’s tenure, corruption had spread to the lower judiciary. Then Indira Gandhi dealt a body blow to all norms of accountability; besides being personally corrupt, she injected criminals into politics. The economic liberalization of the 1990s, which glorified hyper-individualism, further eroded civic consciousness, social norms, and public accountability.
Now, the lack of accountability is deeply entrenched in India’s government, to the point that it would be virtually impossible to reverse. After all, if politicians are unaccountable, they are not going to impose accountability on themselves.
PS: While this trend long preceded the rule of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, the BJP has taken manipulation and obfuscation to a higher level. How have Modi and the BJP reinforced the moral failures and lack of accountability in India? Have they improved economic, social, or political conditions in any way?
AM: When it comes to the decay of accountability, two pre-existing tendencies have been exacerbated hugely under Narendra Modi’s leadership: the Supreme Court’s increasing deference to the executive and disinclination to check abuses of power, and especially the government’s use of its coercive power to quash (real or perceived) dissent by scholars and the media.
There is also a new development weakening accountability in India: the suspension of standard data collection. The census has been indefinitely postponed, and information on household consumption expenditure is severely lacking. The debate on the Modi government’s performance is based largely on inferences from patchy data.
On matters of importance, there is little to praise about the Modi government’s social, political, or economic performance. True, interventions like the construction of millions of toilets and the introduction of subsidies for cooking-gas cylinders have improved the lives of many. But little has been done to enable people stand on their own feet and set their children on a path toward a better future.
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Ultimately, there is no substitute for public goods like human capital, livable cities, a judicial system that serves the vulnerable, and clean air and water. And the Modi government’s actions – even the construction of much-touted digital infrastructure – have not addressed fundamental deficiencies in these areas. At the same time, the government has deepened divisions in Indian society, which is now gripped by an “us versus them” mentality never before seen in the country.
PS: While “market liberalization greatly helped Chinese and Indian growth,” you wrote in July, “China built its successful development strategy on the twin pillars of human capital and gender equality, areas where India has lagged far behind.” What interventions could bolster progress in these areas in India?
AM: History clearly shows that no country can secure long-term economic success without strong human capital and greater gender equality. Unfortunately, historical experience offers little guidance on how to achieve these objectives, not least because every country that has succeeded in these areas has followed its own path.
Nonetheless, there are two broad lessons worth highlighting. The first is that national leaders must set the narrative and take responsibility for easing funding constraints. The second is that local communities and leadership must create the necessary institutional framework, drawing on and reinforcing ground-level incentives and movements. Crucially, these local institutions must take the lead in re-establishing accountability, by bringing together the rulers and the ruled.
BY THE WAY . . .
PS: In India Is Broken, you explain that, since independence, “Indian leaders and policymakers had one task above all: to create jobs for vast numbers of people.” But a “grotesque imbalance between jobs and applicants” persists, serving as a reminder of how “pitifully little” India’s liberalization policy has achieved. But even if closing India’s employment gap – 200 million jobs over the next decade – is an “impossible order,” are there any low-hanging fruit or obvious missed opportunities that can be seized to improve the job picture in the short or medium term?
AM: I am pessimistic precisely because I don’t see any low-hanging fruit. Though India has had success in some high-skill services, these sectors cannot create jobs on the scale required. For the Indian government and many observers, the hope is that India can seize new opportunities in manufacturing, as such activities are moved out of China. But as I read the trends, the movement out of China is slow, because its domestic supply chains are difficult to disentangle, and the manufacturers that have exited China moved production largely to Mexico or Southeast Asia.
I cannot rule out the possibility that India will reap some benefits from this shift. But I fear that the pervasiveness of low-quality education and poor health will act as a major barrier on this front.
PS: India must tackle all of these internal problems in the context of climate change. The “furious debate” among Indian policymakers about “the date by when India should target reaching net-zero carbon emissions” is important, you note, but it also “deflects attention from the immediate problem of protecting people from the multidimensional effects of global warming.” What steps should India take to climate-proof its economy?
AM: The principle is straightforward: don’t damage your environment, because doing so will increase your vulnerability to climate change. Don’t build extravagant highways and large dams in the Himalayas, or the melting glaciers will cause unmanageable landslides. Don’t pursue mindless construction in eco-sensitive zones or on bodies of water, especially in cities, or increasingly frequent downpours will cause unstoppable floods. Don’t build ports and other structures that block the flow of sandy ocean streams, or your beaches and fishing communities will disappear. Don’t authorize indiscriminate mining that destroys mature forests. If we understand and implement the “don’ts,” the “dos” will become clearer.
PS: While you dismiss the “Indian century” that many envision as a fantasy, you conclude your book with a “feasible idealism” about India’s prospects. What is the best-case scenario for India over the next decade or two, and how likely is India to achieve it?
AM: India’s best hope is for grassroots movements to mobilize local communities to restore accountability and establish a basis for the provision of local public goods. But international experience suggests that grassroots movements tend to remain limited – in terms of both the scope of their activities and the scale of their achievements – unless they are given a framework and the opportunity to scale up. Here, official institutional and administrative arrangements are essential.
Experience in the southwest state of Kerala shows how productive synergy between grassroots movements and local administrations can be. The big unanswered question is why other Indian states have not attempted to replicate this success. In fact, far from serving as an exemplar for the rest of India, Kerala is at risk of becoming infected by the country’s pathologies.
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