Slogans vs Reality: 12 Simple Facts on Modiji's 12 Months

The media is full of anniversary retrospectives, and since I've been early off the starting gate with my own assessment of the Prime Minister and his regime (as far back as December 2014), I am reluctant to repeat myself in mellifluous analytical prose all over again. Since my point of view is well-known already, I would prefer not to belabour my readers with further commentary. Instead, here is a simple recital of bare facts - one for each of Mr Modi's months in office to date, juxtaposed with the related Moditva slogan:
 

• Slogan: "India First".
• Reality: The Prime Minister has delivered more speeches in Parliaments abroad, than in the Lok Sabha of which he is a member.

 

• Slogan: "No more tax terrorism".
• Reality: The government inflicted tax demands on entire new categories of victims, shaking investor confidence. Foreign funds have withdrawn $550 million from India in the first half of May alone, a dubious record.

 

• Slogan: "Responsible government".
• Reality: Despite draconian measures and targets, the Government missed the revised tax collection target for both direct and indirect taxes by Rs 2,288 crore in the financial year 2014-15.

 

• Slogan: "Make in India".
• Reality: Manufacturing rate of growth under UPA, May 2014: 5.6%. Manufacturing rate of growth under NDA, April 2015: 2.1%.

 

• Slogan: "We will create jobs for our youth."
• Reality: Number of Indians entering the job market each month: 10 lakh. Number of new jobs created by UPA April-June 2014: 1.82 lakh. Number of new jobs created by Modi government October-December 2014: 1.17 lakh.

 

• Slogan: "Indian businesses will thrive."
• Reality: India's merchandise exports shrank for the fifth consecutive month in April. Merchandise exports last month were 14% lower than the $25.6 billion in April last year, and imports fell 7.5% to $33 billion, leaving a trade deficit of $11 billion, according to commerce ministry data.

 

• Slogan: "We will build India."
• Reality: The total value of tenders issued in 2014-15 (across infrastructure sectors) stood at Rs 395,300 crore, a 23 per cent decline from the previous year under UPA. The problem of weak tendering affected railways, highways, real estate, water supply and the irrigation sector.

 

• Slogan: "We will build roads that UPA couldn't."
• Reality: The Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) got a budgetary allocation of only Rs 14,291 crore for 2015-16. According to the Ministry of Rural Development, the state governments require Rs 57,206 crore just to complete pending road-building projects already sanctioned. The budget won't cover a quarter of that, let alone new roads.

 

• Slogan: "Jan Suraksha".
• Reality: Social-sector spending as a percentage of the gross domestic product (GDP) has fallen to its lowest levels since 2010 - and that's not even taking into account five years of inflation since then. Budgets for health, education, sanitation and women's security - all major talking points of the BJP's election campaign - have been savagely slashed. Central schemes remain on paper but are now unfunded or grossly underfunded.

 

• Slogan: "Jan Dhan Yojana".
• Reality: 60% of the new Jan Dhan Yojana accounts have zero balance.

 

• Slogan: "Sab Ka Saath, Sab Ka Vikas".
• Reality: India's minorities are daily being made to feel unwelcome by the majoritarian discourse flourishing under the BJP, with ruling party MPs, including two Ministers, uttering Hindu-chauvinist sentiments never heard before from people in authority. Ghar wapasi, saffronization, statues of Godse, Ramzadein and Haramzadein, have all entered into and seared our political discourse, while the Prime Minister has remained ostentatiously silent, refusing to discipline or dismiss his errant ministers.

 

• Slogan: "Our coal auctions made record sums of money."
• Reality: These are projections of what auctioned coal mines would make over thirty years of full and successful production. It takes a level of chutzpah that only Mr Modi is capable of to claim credit in 2015 for accomplishments that won't actually occur till 2045.

Everyone's entitled to their own opinions, but not to their own facts. These are incontrovertible facts; the glowing polls being cited by Mr Modi's supporters are opinions. At this rate, the facts will continue to speak for themselves in the only poll that matters - the one that's coming in 2019.

(Dr Shashi Tharoor is a two-time MP from Thiruvananthapuram, the Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs, the former Union Minister of State for External Affairs and Human Resource Development and the former UN Under-Secretary-General. He has written 15 books, including, most recently, India Shastra: Reflections On the Nation in Our Time.)

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.