BJP failed to make inroads in Kerala and Tamil Nadu as the Gujarat model fell victim to the manipulated criticism by western and Indian intellectual classes, and renowned economists like Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze
Now as Narendra Modi is in the saddle to steer India out of 10 years of misery to a desired model of development, it is pertinent to look back at the relevance of the Gujarat model which played a catalyst in the BJP’s landslide victory. However the Gujarat model could not attract the voters of two southern States of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, and therefore, it is a challenge for the BJP to make inroads in these two States.
Apart from the factors like weaker cadre strength in southern States, a long legacy of dominance of region-centric politics, misconception about the BJP being a party of north-Indian Hindi-speaking people, and low expectation of the BJP getting a thumping majority in the Centre, there can be another very crucial factor related to information dissemination about the achievement of the BJP Governments. The society in Kerala, to a large extent, has been under the influence of intelligentsia, the same is true with Tamil Nadu but to a lesser extent. To impress the voters in a State like Kerala, the party needed to show it can participate in intellectual debates. Owing to the deficit in the academic and intellectual backing, the BJP had a poor performance in Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
We need to observe the story unravelling in these “two States”. Why the BJP could not gain a foothold there with a promise of good governance or with the potential of coming to power at the Centre is a point to ponder over. To begin with, a certain deficiency in the proper academic highlighting of the achievements of the Gujarat model is visible. But the first question is whether there is any substantial achievement of the Gujarat model in comparison to those of other States. A most heterogeneous country like India cannot have any single yardstick to compare the performance of any two of its States as no State in India is ahead in all the indicators of development. Due to a high degree of heterogeneity in language, culture, customs, traditions, history of development, etc, priorities of developmental strategy cannot be same in two States. Keeping these things in mind, let us first try to have a look at the comparative achievements of the two States: Gujarat and Kerala on some crucial indicators of development.
It is clear from this table that there are five aspects — modern flush toilet, electrification, literacy, sex ratio and infant mortality rate, where Kerala is ahead of Gujarat, while in eleven aspects Gujarat is ahead of Kerala. However, all the five factors where Kerala is showing better performance come with some qualifications.
The percentage of the occurrence of modern flush toilets is higher in Kerala (66) than in Gujarat (52). As if to alleviate that, Gujarat has been active in providing public toilet to people who didn’t have their own private toilets. 2.3 per cent households use government-built public toilets in Gujarat, while the corresponding figure in Kerala is 1 per cent.
Kerala is ahead of Gujarat in electrification: 94.4 per cent of total households have electricity in Kerala, while the corresponding figure for Gujarat is 90.4 per cent. However, the cost of supplying electricity in Kerala is relatively low due to a high density of population while the same for Gujarat is rather high due to low population density.
As far as literacy is concerned, 93.9 per cent of the population is literate in Kerala, while in Gujarat it is 79.3 per cent. Still, the percentage increase in the literacy of Gujarat has been approximately 14 per cent (which shows the effort of their literacy drive) while the same for Kerala is 3.4 per cent during 2001 to 2010, but given the high initial literacy level of Kerala, there is relatively little scope for further improvement. At the same time we must not forget that the development of educational infrastructure in Kerala was also largely assisted by religious institutions, especially those of Christian missionaries, a factor which is insignificant in the case of Gujarat.
As far as the sex ratio is concerned, Kerala is again ahead of Gujarat. But one of the major reasons why Kerala is ahead of Gujarat is that Kerala has a high out-migration of the male workers from the State for jobs while Gujarat has in-migration of labourers from other States.
The last factor where Gujarat has shown poor performance (as shown in the table) is infant mortality rate. Here, I would like to remind all the readers that this is the data collected through sample survey (all other figures in table are census reports or annual reports), and it is a well known fact that the choice of samples is always vulnerable to criticism as being bias (refer to my article published in The Pioneer on May 3, 2014). One can easily notice the contradiction between sample survey data and census data: the infant mortality rate is very high in Gujarat (41) than Kerala (12), in spite of Gujarat’s lower death rate and high couple protection rate in comparison to Kerala. This contradiction constitutes a puzzle, as both the factors of higher couple protection rate and lower death rates indicate better health services. A political bias in the collection of samples cannot be, therefore, ruled out.
Here we can notice that almost all the variables where Gujarat seems to be lagging have witnessed sincere government initiatives (toilets, electricity and literacy), if we keep aside the questionable sample surveys. It should be noted that among all the variables (access to water, government-built toilets, access to lPG fuel, hospital bed, women getting married before the legal age of 18, crime against women, death rate, unemployment rate and public expenditure on health) where Gujarat is showing better performance are of strategic importance for any developing society, i.e. the lower rate of crime against woman and average population served by one government hospital bed.
Though each and every crime against women is a disgrace for any civilised society and must not be quantified, but if we compare Gujarat with Kerala we find it rather unconvincing and embarrassing that the State of Kerala, which has 2.4 times more incident of rape, 1.5 times more dowry death and 6.3 times more cases of sexual harassment compared to Gujarat, is being placed higher in human development index. Unfortunately HDI does not take these things into consideration.
Our academics (or a majority among them) have never highlighted these important development indicators related to better access to water, lPG, beds in government hospitals, better infrastructure and less unemployment, woman empowerment in terms of less number of instances of rape, dowry death, molestation and lower percentage of women getting married before the age of 18.
There is a saying: A bad name is worse than a bad deed. It won’t be a piece of exaggeration if I say that the Gujarat model fell victim to the manipulated criticism by western and Indian media, western and Indian intellectual classes, especially the renowned economists like Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze. The number and impact of these academicians are so immense that any renowned economist could not even try to write a single good thing about Gujarat fearing isolation. Even if someone ever tried to write anything to that effect, he was unnecessarily harangued as supporter of Modi, who was, in their view, a killer, fascist, dictator, irresponsible, rioter and communal.
Given the bias of most intellectuals in our country, the BJP, in order to survive in uncharted areas, may be required to launch an intellectual platform similar to those of other parties. It should not only advise the Government on various issues but can also address the people about the achievements and challenges.
Apart from the important task related to the economic development of India, Modi should focus on the strategies to stop crime against women, which he had already done to a great extent in Gujarat. This would require two-pronged policies: immediate and long-term. The immediate policy could ensure time-bound justice in cases of heinous crimes against women through fast-track trials. The long-term policy would require legislative changes to treat all women equally at par with men irrespective of their caste and religion. The legislations related to women’s security should be based on rationality and justice, not on religion or caste. The Hindu Marriage Act and the Muslim Personal law Board both are highly old- fashioned, and they have negative impact on the development of women. For instance, Kerala has highest sex ratio and highest women literacy but the percentage of woman getting married before the age of 18 is also very high largely owing to the retrograde nature of the prevalent religious personal law.
Perhaps a Uniform Civil Code is the need of the hour for empowering women across religious and caste divides in our country. The writer of this article would like to call upon the authorities to include the empowerment of women as an essential criterion while assessing and compiling the data for Human Development Index.
(The writer is Assistant Professor, Department of Economics,University of Delhi)