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I was in a surreal economic dream…
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched the “world’s largest and most ambitious healthcare insurance scheme”, pompously branded Modicare. Each of India’s 26 crore households/families would be reimbursed up to Rs 5 lakh in annual medical expenses. Suddenly, even as the congratulatory din resounded in the Parliament, an epidemic broke out.
As if in a sci-fi film, 26 crore Indians fell ill, one in each household. Modi put on his Superman cape, and flew around the country ensuring that Rs 5 lakh were dispensed to each patient. Unfortunately, all 26 crore died, but Indian hospitals booked Rs 130 lakh crore ($ 2 trillion) of income.
I now segued into the second dream sequence…
Prime Minister Modi was in a somewhat familiar stadium, part Madison Square Garden and part Royal Albert Hall. He was giving a bewitching speech:
Merey sawa sau crore Hindustaniyon nay toh kamaal kar diya. Universe kay Big Bang kay baad, jabse yeh dharti bani hai, tabsey aaj tak, kisi bhi desh nay ek saal main GDP main pijhattar pratishat ka izaafa nahin kiya hai. Lekin merey desh vasiyon nay, ek saath bimaar hokar, ek saath apni jaan ki kurbani dekar, yeh universal record bana diya hai. Un sabko shat shat pranam.
(My 1.25 billion Indians have performed a miracle. Ever since the Big Bang in the Universe followed by the creation of our Earth, no country has achieved an annual GDP growth of 75 percent. But my wonderful countrymen fell collectively ill, died, and created this universal record. I bow my head in gratitude).
Dreams can be unnaturally malleable...
You can go from one impossible point to another without batting an eyelid. So I went careening back in time, to Senator Bobby Kennedy’s iconic speech at the University of Kansas on 18 March 1968:
Two thunderous applauses, for Modi/Kennedy, got mixed and amped up in my dream. And as happens so often, the noise in my sleepy head slowly dissolved into the real clapping sound coming from the TV screen as I woke up to the real world...
There he was, Prime Minister Modi in flesh and blood, giving another of his dramatic addresses at the annual general meeting of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank at Mumbai on Tuesday (26 June 2018):
As is his wont, Modi cherry picked all the good stuff, but plenty of troublesome facts were left unsaid:
Once you factor in this counter-narrative, Modi’s purple prose on the GDP begins to turn an angry crimson red.
As is obvious from the arguments above, GDP is a fuzzy and imprecise measure of economic health. It is always fixated on ‘more’, not ‘better’.
Let me end with the most crushing fact. Guess which was that five-year period during which America’s GDP leapt by 75 percent, the UK’s by 27 percent and Germany’s by over 21 percent? It was 1938-43, when the most brutal phase of World War II raged across the planet. Millions were killed, cities got bombed to rubble, ships were sunk, aircraft got crashed… but hey, enjoy, because the GDP of the warring nations swelled (with a bloody pride).
Postscript: Don’t get me wrong. I am not panning GDP growth; the bulk of it does show up in a genuine improvement in living standards. In fact I am a great votary of rapid GDP accretion. But it is as much a Gross Economic Jumla (clever/specious promise) as the Gospel of Prosperity that Prime Minister Modi is making his 2019 re-election pitch.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)
Published: 30 Jun 2018,08:02 AM IST