Presidential addresses to parliament are not meant to represent the President’s own views, but the priorities of the elected government. In other words, he may speak the words, but they are written, more or less, by the government in power.
President Pranab Mukherjee with Narendra Modi. PTI
Even so, the speech read out by President Pranab Mukherjee to a joint session of Parliament today (9 June) stands out from previous addresses by past presidents. It had Narendra Modi written all over it, complete with his ‘minimum-government-maximum-governance’ catchphrase, and trade mark alliterative lines, like the four T’s (Tradition, Talent, Tourism and Technology), and three D’s (Democracy, Demography and Demand). Plus the Ek Bharat, Shresht Bharat election tagline. It was Modi’s speech and vision that Mukherjee read out.
Ten things are worth remarking about in the speech.
First, its social content marginally outweighed its economic content, even though it is the country’s economic crisis that has to be fixed first before government can find the resources for social investments. The social agenda Mukherjee outlined included the Bill to reserve 33 percent of seats in Parliament and legislatures for women, women’s safety, anti-corruption measures, improvements in the criminal justice system, cleanliness and hygiene (Swachch Bharat Mission), and the empowerment of the SC/STs and minorities, among others.
Second, Mukherjee gently finessed the Congress on its minority platform but turning Manmohan Singh’s statement — that the minorities had the first claim on the state’s resources — into something that includes all the poor. He said the "poor" had the first claim to the nation’s resources. He brought the inclusiveness part separately, when he talked of the minorities suffering poverty as the benefits intended for the poor were not reaching them. He talked of "making all minorities equal partners" in development. A National Madrasa Modernisation Mission was also announced.
Third, he set the social goals of the government at lofty levels. Mukherjee talked not just of “poverty alleviation” but “poverty elimination” and committed the government to providing each family with a pucca house, 24x7 power, water, and sanitation by 2022 — the 75th year of Independence. In agriculture, there will be a Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana — with irrigation to every field as the goal (Har khet ko paani).
Fourth, Mukherjee’s speech eschewed the politics of the zero-sum game and embraced the agenda of hope — where everybody has the right to dream big. He thus deftly aligned the goals of the rich and the poor, the rural and the urban, agriculture and industry, states and Centre, the traditional and the modern. While he promised improved living standards for the poor, he promised to make doing business easier with single-window clearances; he promised more investments in agriculture, and better laws for industry; he proposed urban-quality facilities in rural areas even while promising 100 new cities and more money for urban infrastructure; while talking about improving the Himalaya and Ganga ecosystems — almost as a concession to the Hindu brigade who helped him win the election — he made it about economy and development, not religion; he also married the development of religious tourist circuits to economic growth. It was a politically astute speech that made the traditional seem modern.
Fifth, the speech clearly hitched Modi’s campaign promises and the BJP’s election manifesto to programmes of the government. Thus every state will have an IIT, an IIM, and an AIIMS. Like Vajpayee’s golden quadrilateral highways project, Modi’s BJP wants to do the same with its railways — a diamond quadrilateral. World class railway infrastructure will be built with a new investor-friendly public-private participation model.
Sixth, the only direct concession to the BJP’s own agenda referred to the building of fences on the Bangladesh border to stop illegal infiltration, and the early return of the Kashmiri Pandits to the Valley – the “land of their ancestors.” The speech also clearly identified left-wing extremism as a major internal security threat and promised action to deal with cyber security issues.
Seventh, the Gujarat model featured indirectly in the speech. While Mukherjee talked of backing state-specific models of development, he also said that the BJP would back a port-based model of growth, given its long coastline. This is what Gujarat has done. Ditto on energy. Gujarat has a robust gas grid and an extensive solar energy plan; this will be extended nationally. All this will come under an overall National Energy Policy covering all sources of energy – conventional and unconventional, from coal to gas to petroleum to solar, wind and nuclear power.
Eighth, the President outlined the government’s anti-corruption approach as primarily driven by transparency. While the Lokpal will be constituted as it is now law, Modi’s systemic approach is primarily about reducing corruption by automating government processes, reducing discretion in decision-making, and having transparent policies. There will be a clearly stated policy on the sale or sharing of natural resources, including spectrum, and public services will be freed from bureaucracy by making most interactions online.
Ninth, the economic agenda outlined was simple: Focus on reducing food inflation through supply side initiatives, rationalise taxation and simplify the regime, end the adversarial relationship with taxpayers, implement the goods and services tax after buying the willingness of states, open up labour-intensive sectors for foreign investment, including defence, offer single-window clearances for projects, and revitalise the investment cycle. Industry will wait to hear about what the government proposes to do about land acquisition: the speech promised a national land use policy, where non-cultivable land is put to strategic use. Whether this will mean more land being made available for infrastructure and manufacturing remains to be seen. But nothing was said that industry did not want to hear.
Tenth, the Modi sentiment that Mukherjee underlined was that Delhi would not dictate. It will work with states, and not against them. It will rejuvenate the National Development Council and inter-state councils so that together they all work for Team India.
Mukherjee said that over the last few years, the federal spirit had been diluted, and under Modi it would be reinstated.
Modi has essentially promised that there will be no Delhi dadagiri in future. What remains to be seen is how the promises are implemented in the hurly-burly of Indian realpolitik.
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