Nineteen thousand cheering fans. Holograms. Brilliant lights and blaring music. Rock concert? Nope. EDM show? Not quite. On September 28, newly elected Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi took to the hallowed ground of Madison Square Garden to hold a victory rally in the United States. Thousands of Indian-Americans turned out for the event, many of them sporting Modi t-shirts with images of the Prime Minister’s face stylized à la Barack Obama’s “Hope” poster. Attendees also included Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair Bob Menendez and Indian-American Governor of South Carolina Nikki Haley. The event, organized by a newly founded group called the Indian American Community Foundation, boasted cultural dances, musical performances, and former Miss America Nina Davuluri. A venue known for hosting athletes, celebrities, and rockstars found itself bursting at the seams with supporters of a poor boy from Gujarat who had ascended to India’s highest office.
Riya Patel ‘17 had the opportunity to attend the rally, describing it as an “incredible experience” in an interview with the HPR. Patel went on to relate the fervor of the event, feeling like she was “at a concert, where people were chanting and yelling with all of their might.” The event also focused on issues that mattered most to Non-Resident Indians (NRIs), like immigration and business opportunities. “When Modi announced his new travel and immigration policies, the crowd went nuts,” said Patel, as the policy change would make it easier for NRIs to go back home and visit their families.
Despite all the hype surrounding the event, Indian citizens need to think critically about what a Modi government looks like in the long term. The event at Madison Square Garden was full of pomp and circumstance, traditional Indian dance, colorful displays of art, and the infectious percussion of the Indian table, but it did not contain much substance about the serious developmental issues India faces. Rather, the new Prime Minister’s recent economic and social policy actions suggest an agenda that may endanger the long-term gains of many for the short-term gains of a few.
Economic Policy: Selling the Family Jewels
One of Modi’s biggest economic moves has been to sell percentage shares in public sector undertakings (PSUs) in order to further open up India to private enterprise. The sales’ proponents argue that the entrance of private corporations in India’s energy and infrastructure industries will boost the Indian economy and create new jobs. Additionally, since only a percentage of the assets are being sold, the government-owned PSUs will continue to pay public dividends. Foreign investors are excited about the plan, seeing it as another healthy sign that India is “open for business” with the rest of the world.
While all the benefits of the sale mentioned are legitimate, these short-term gains do not outweigh the long-term costs of such a sale. From an economic perspective, public assets are seen as stocks of capital, which generate returns in perpetuity. The revenue from these PSUs funds health services, education, and employment—all social services of which India is in dire need. Partially privatizing these enterprises may take away from these social funds in the future by driving revenues out of the public coffers. Additionally, the jobs that these privatizations would generate would largely involve low-skilled labor, and they would likely be given to immigrants from other countries in Southeast Asia who provide an attractive option to companies looking to lower labor costs. Furthermore, technological advances have streamlined manufacturing processes, reducing the need for manual labor, meaning that newly privatized industries might not create as many jobs as they once did. In the short term, the move will only benefit the wealthy upper class who control the means of production in India, leaving the majority of Indians in the same precarious position in the long term.
Social Policy: Bangladeshi Immigration
Modi’s immigration policy also excludes large sectors of the Indian population and threatens to further divide the country. India faces a serious illegal immigration problem, especially in Eastern states. The NGO Concern Universal estimates that 50 Bangladeshis cross into India every day. Many come seeking employment, opportunities, and stability, while others flee persecution, debt, and intolerance. A significant number of Bangladeshi immigrants are Bangladeshi Hindus escaping the religious prejudice of an increasingly Islamic nation; however, many of them are Muslim.
Prime Minister Modi has argued that differential treatment is necessary when addressing the problem of illegal Bangladeshi immigration. Modi insists that Hindu migrants must be “accommodated,” saying that detention camps housing Hindu migrants will be done away with “as soon as we come to power.” Modi’s rationale for giving Hindu migrants preferential treatment is that India has a “responsibility towards Hindus who are harassed and suffer in other countries … India is the only place for them.” He further cites India’s status as the cultural home of the Hindu faith.
Though there is no short-term danger in streamlining the immigration process for Hindu refugees, Modi’s partiality towards Hindus creates a dangerous, restrictive precedent in the long term, as India is currently going through a wave of religious intolerance spurred by Hindu nationalism that is repressing religious practices, thought, and expression, and creating dissidence throughout India’s religious minority communities. This could lead to a homegrown insurgent movement in India, as crackdowns on religious communities, especially Muslim ones, have been known to give way to fundamentalist extremism. Modi already has a reputation for disdain towards Muslims, stemming from the Gujarat Riots of 2002, where Hindus rioted in Muslim communities following the burning of a train carriage that was carrying Hindu pilgrims by Muslim extremists. Anti-Muslim violence spread throughout Gujarat, killing thousands, and it was suspected that Modi, governor of the state at the time, was complicit in these riots.
The Promise of the BJP?
Modi is the head of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a right-wing Hindu Nationalist party that has captured a majority in the Indian Parliament after 30 years of rule by the secular Congress Party. Professor Tarun Khanna of Harvard Business School and the South Asia Institute argued in an interview with the HPR that the entry of new options into any election is important because “it represents choice, one of the mainstays of a vibrant system of free elections.” Khanna did concede, however, “it would be good for everyone if a strong, credible opposition to the BJP also emerges, to spur dialog.”
Modi has been meeting with world leaders regularly, presenting his party’s vision of a dynamic India of growth, change, and development. India has the world’s second largest population and is rapidly becoming a major player on the international political, economic, and cultural stage. Though Modi’s rock star reception in Madison Square Garden is heralded as a sign that India-U.S. relations are going to be better than ever, it is still unclear whom this partnership ultimately benefits. Can the new Prime Minister deliver on the promises of such a great performance?
Madison Square Garden was just the first tour stop, and every crowd will be harder and harder to please. Trade between India and the United States is currently at $100 billion, and Vice President Joe Biden estimates that it has the potential to reach upwards of $500 billion in the next five years. Modi has repeatedly claimed that India and the United States are natural allies, but Professor Khanna maintains that the countries’ “interests have not been perfectly aligned, and will likely not be in the future, [… although] both countries would benefit from deeper-seated cooperation.”
Modi’s pro-business, pro-America stance has earned him many allies in the West, but his religiously inflected views on immigration and India’s internal diversity cause some worry. Though foreign investment is also needed, India can only leverage its booming, youthful population if those people are educated, have adequate access to healthcare, and have opportunities for social mobility. Providing this population with those resources requires the careful planning, allocation of capital, and critical thinking that only comes from a long-term approach. According to Professor Khanna, the “big barriers to global capital taking India seriously are, of course, infrastructure limitations, bureaucratic roadblocks, and, most insidiously, policy erraticism … hopefully [Modi] can address the last two in the shorter term, and the first of these over time.”
Image sources: The New Indian Express, International Business Times