The Political Fix: Economy, welfare and the temple – what is on the Lok Sabha agenda for Modi 2.0?

Welcome to the Political Fix by Rohan Venkataramakrishnan. Over the course of the Lok Sabha polls earlier this year, our The Election Fix newsletter brought you all the headlines and analysis needed to navigate India’s electoral terrain.

With the Political Fix. we hope to do the same, except this time we are offering you a guide to India’s political landscape in the second term of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Once a week, we’ll send you the main news stories, analysis and opinions from all over so that you don’t have to wade through cluttered newspaper sites or shouty TV debates to follow Indian politics.

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The Big Story: Modi 2.0

The predecessor to this newsletter, the Election Fix, began with a very simple question: Will Narendra Modi return to power in India? Unlike earlier Lok Sabha elections, which featured multiple narratives, the 2019 polls seemed to revolve only around this query.

The answer, of course, was an emphatic “yes”. Voters picked Modi in huge numbers, and gave his Bharatiya Janata Party an absolute majority in Parliament for the second time, with more seats than it won in 2014.

For the Political Fix, then, the central question is, simply put: how is India going to change under “Modi 2.0”? Of course, this doesn’t mean we will focus only on the BJP or its politics at the Centre. But it is undeniable that the saffron party is the dominant pole of Indian politics at the moment, and the position of every other party is defined by how it reacts to the BJP.

With the swearing-in done and the surprise Cabinet picks made, India’s 17th Lok Sabha begins its very first session this week. The main order of business involves the new government’s first Budget, which will come on July 5. But this week, we can also expect to get a sense of what is occupying space on Modi’s legislative agenda, and whether the Opposition, led by the Congress (although that may not be the right verb to use) can recover from its electoral drubbing.

Though mostly just a rubber stamp, Parliament occasionally proved frustrating for the BJP over the last five years, not least because the party often seemed unused to the task of floor management or simply unwilling to engage with the Opposition, which still had a majority in the Upper House, the Rajya Sabha. The BJP will still have to wait until 2021 before its alliance can hope to get a majority there.

Will the Lok Sabha continue to be mostly a rubber stamp? With even more of the Lower House dominated by ruling party members, that seems quite likely. As a returning regime, though, Modi 2.0 will be expected to swing into action much quicker than it did in 2014. On tap are the following:

• A slumping economy: Indicators from across the country suggest that the Indian economy is going through a downturn, with no clear solution in sight. The new government’s first Budget will have to give investors and citizens the confidence that it will be able to grapple with this issue.
• An agricultural crisis: Modi has already set up a high-powered committee to look into reforms for the farm sector, which is going through tremendous distress. But the BJP government has shown little appetite for fixes that might solve the root problems, rather than simply changing the narrative.
• An unfinished business agenda: Modi 1.0 saw the passage of the Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code and the Goods & Services Tax, both crucial pieces of legislation with many concerns about their implementation. Expect more attempts to simplify laws for business, with fresh focus again on land and labour.
• Development or welfare: Over the last five years, the Smart Cities and Make in India projects gave way to Ujjwala (gas subsidies) and PM-Kisan (a farmer handout). Modi has already identified piped water as the new government’s top priority. Will it lean even heavier towards welfare this time?
• Right-wing demands: With a second majority and a huge mandate, will the Lok Sabha finally tackle some of the perennial promises of the BJP that have for long seemed more like issues to rake up before elections than actual items on a legislative agenda? These include the controversial demand for a Ram Temple on the site of the demolished Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, deleting clauses giving autonomy to Jammu & Kashmir and a Uniform Civil Code that would apply to followers of all religions.

What do you think will be the legislative priority under Modi 2.0? Write to rohan@scroll.in

Catch up

• The Congress still hasn’t recovered from its massive drubbing in the elections. President Rahul Gandhi appears to be out of the country on vacation, its state units are riven with infighting and murmurs that the party was misled by top advisors.
• West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has gone from frying pan to political fire. Having seen the BJP win in a big way in her state, Banerjee is struggling to respond to a state-wide strike by doctors who say her government encourages violence by patients.
• States are unhappy with the federal arrangement as it currently stands. At a meeting of the NITI Aayog governing council, chief ministers – including those from states where the BJP is in power in coalitions – raised concerns about GST and how central schemes work.
• Tamil Nadu is debating a medieval emperor. Director Pa Ranjith’s comments that the reign of Raja Raja Chola I, considered the greatest Tamil king in history, was a dark period for Dalits has sparked off a war of words.

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Giggle

Reports, analysis & opinions:

• The 10% “upper caste” quota doesn’t make much sense. An examination of data from higher education institutes in the Economic & Political Weekly finds that economically backward upper castes already have 28% representation.
• Are India’s GDP numbers being over-estimated? If you missed it last week, one of the main talking points was the contention by former Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian that India’s growth figures are inflated by as much as 2.5 percentage points.
• The Hindu has some pretty harsh words for the Congress: In an editorial, the newspaper said “the lack of maturity, egocentrism, and sense of entitlement underlying Congress president Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s response in the aftermath of the defeat are disheartening for sympathisers and a boon for the BJP”.
• Concentration of power under Modi has meant India has become a “centralised federal” state. In a policy brief, Christophe Jaffrelot and Sanskruthi Kalyankar say India is moving towards a “unitary state”, like Australia, where states are not seen as distinct, but simply divisions.

Did we miss any important pieces or headlines? Let us know. Write to rohan@scroll.in