Modi masked his failings with bombs, nationalism

Bloomberg

On a cool Delhi evening in November 2016, Narendra Modi hastily called a national address to make the most consequential decision of his premiership: Effective at midnight, some 86 percent of India’s cash would no longer be valid in a bid to stamp out corruption.
Panic quickly ensued as India’s 1.3 billion people—many with no bank accounts or credit cards—rushed to exchange banned 500 and 1,000 rupee notes. The economy took a hit, thousands lost their jobs and deaths were reported in the chaos. When the dust settled, nearly all the invalidated bank notes were returned, raising questions about what it all accomplished.
Such a drastic move would be political suicide for most elected officials. But Modi managed to come away even stronger using a playbook that has put him on the verge of securing a landslide victory when votes are counted in a national election on May 23: Heavy-handed appeals to nationalism that rally the masses to his side.
“Modi will have learnt from his first term that controlling the political narrative can yield huge political dividends,” said Katharine Adeney, director of the University of Nottingham Asia Research Institute. In the general election, she said, he’s successfully touted his record on national security, which came after India dropped bombs on Pakistan this year.
The episodes show the evolution of Modi since he first contested India’s top office five years ago. Back then, he said a vote for his Bharatiya Janata Party was a vote for development, reform and jobs. He promised to clean India, make stuff in India and make India respected again on the world stage.
After winning the country’s biggest electoral mandate in three decades, he had some initial success pushing reforms. Six of nine major measures—including deregulating diesel prices and opening the coal sector to foreign investment—came in the administration’s first year, according to the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Yet after that, things slowed down. As Modi’s ratings dipped during his tenure, reform
talk gave way to pledges of quotas for government jobs, income support for farmers, a massive health insurance programme and vows to punish arch-rival Pakistan.
“Industry had expectations that he would be a huge corporate reformer,” said Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, who wrote a biography of Modi.
He also set up committees of senior officials from various ministries and had them make presentations to himself and cabinet which stretched late into evening, the person said.
Instead of fixing glitches, Modi often moved onto the next challenge because he’s in a hurry to announce more policy victories, according to two senior civil servants who have worked with him for years. The launch of the national sales tax, which caused confusion among business owners and hurt growth, was one example of a policy that was needlessly rushed, one of the officials said.
Modi’s efforts to control the narrative have met resistance. Two top official statisticians quit after the government suppressed a report warning of record unemployment, and 108 economists questioned the credibility of India’s GDP data.