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Before you listen to this episode of The Scene and the Unseen, I have a recommendation for
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Do check out Pulya Baazi hosted by Saurabh Chandra and Pranay Kutasane, two really good
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Kickass podcast in Hindi, it's amazing.
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One of the themes of the last few episodes of The Scene and the Unseen is how hindsight
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makes the past seem inevitable.
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It isn't always like that.
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Sitting here in 2019, it's obvious that the Narendra Modi government has failed at so
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But back in 2014, there were many who were hopeful that this government would make important
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reforms and take the country forward.
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Among those who felt this hope, in fact, was a guest of my episode today, who was then
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and is now a spokesperson for the Congress party.
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The BJP's manifesto in 2014 had much that was welcome, and some of those themes, in
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fact, have carried forward to the Congress manifesto of 2019.
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Unfortunately for India, much of that was just words.
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Modi wasted a great opportunity to take our country ahead.
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And no matter which party you support, that has to count as a great disappointment.
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Welcome to The Scene and the Unseen, our weekly podcast on economics, politics and behavioral
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Please welcome your host, Amit Barma.
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Welcome to The Scene and the Unseen.
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My guest for today is economist Salman Sohz, who is a spokesperson for the Congress party
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and has just released a book called The Great Disappointment.
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The book is about the economics of Narendra Modi's five-year term.
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And given that it is written by a member of the opposition party, I expected it to be
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Salman clearly wrote the book with his economist hat on, even though he's quite forthright
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about where his loyalties lie.
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His account in the book is surprisingly balanced and has personal touches that I found refreshing
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He writes that he liked much that was in the BJP manifesto of 2014 and that he was hopeful
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that Modi would fulfill some of his promises.
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In fact, his book is called The Great Disappointment because Modi did not fulfill those promises.
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When I wrote to Salman to invite him for the show, I told him that I wanted to talk about
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more than just what was in the book.
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Many of the topics he covers like demonetization and GST have already been covered in detail
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in the scene and the unseen over multiple episodes.
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I wanted him to go beyond the economics of Modi's term and I also wanted to ask him tough
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questions about the Congress Party itself.
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Salman's response to this request can be summed up in three words, ask me anything.
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And indeed, he gamely took on everything I threw at him.
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He told me what the UPA did wrong, he explained what Modi got right, he praised the Vajpayee
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government and he even took on an awkward question about the dynastic nature of the
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Congress Party leadership.
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Whether his answers convince you or not is a different matter but I was enormously impressed
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at the sincerity and the intellectual honesty and the fact that a leader from a major political
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party would open himself up to difficult questions in this manner.
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Can you imagine anyone from our current BJP leadership agreeing to do this?
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Before we get to our conversation though, a quick commercial break.
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The book I want to recommend today is by one of my heroes, a 19th century French writer
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wrote called that which is seen and that which is not seen.
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of the way the state works and the importance for individual freedom.
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Salman welcome to the scene and the unseen.
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Thank you so much Amit.
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Thank you for having me.
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Salman I really enjoyed reading your book The Great Disappointment which did not live
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up to its title in the sense it wasn't a great disappointment for me.
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Before we kind of get to the book, tell me a little bit about your career as an economist
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and all the journeys you've made so far.
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You know I went for higher studies to the US and you know realized that I enjoyed policy
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work and didn't really want to get into the PhD stream you know going to academics and
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So the World Bank was always one of those things that my father used to tell me about
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you talk about the World Bank, the IMF and GATT.
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Those days we had the GATT not the WTO so he always thought of me as an international
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And you know I pursued that and somehow landed up at the World Bank, passed around my resume
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quite a bit and then you know started doing in fact my first assignment at the World Bank
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was about evaluation and the importance of results in development work.
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And after all these years now I feel that there's a lot more emphasis on what the outcomes
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and impacts of programs are as opposed to just the inputs because we used to focus so
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much on inputs earlier.
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So in the World Bank I've done a lot of different work.
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I worked on strategic issues, I worked on actually I worked on natural disasters and
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how to manage their impacts and I've actually led teams in Europe and Central Asia.
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I worked on you know forming international partnerships so a lot of different stuff but
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then you know eventually when I moved to India in 2011 I quit the World Bank because I thought
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that you know there are plenty of people with my kind of background in the US and I wanted
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to kind of do more work in Kashmir and in India.
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I thought this international exposure to policy work would probably help there.
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So you know in some ways I kind of took that kind of lens and went to India and of course
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the reality on the ground is very different from what you see from Washington.
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So it was a very very interesting experience but I actually started delving more into India's
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political economy which I found to be very interesting and of course India's challenges
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are you know immense and so you know I think that's how I can just meandered around and
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ultimately ended up working on India, writing about the Indian economy and eventually writing
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You're part of the Congress and you're one of the spokespeople and you know one thing
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that sort of I wonder is you know Harry Truman once spoke about how he would like one handed
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economist because economist keeps saying on the one hand this on the other hand that and
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you know so as an economist obviously you're trained to look at every side of an issue
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to examine all the nuances and so on but in politics especially I would imagine if you're
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the spokesman of a party sometimes you have to stick to a simple narrative you can't do
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on the one hand this on the other hand that how do you reconcile those different challenges.
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Well yeah I think that is a significant challenge for people especially who come you know with
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my background but you know I mean first I come from you know a family where politics
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was already kind of ingrained in us, my father has been a politician for decades, he was
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a member of parliament for many many terms and also minister so I think I've seen it
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up close but when you join a political party which I did in 2013 or so formally and then
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you're asked to represent the party and its views of course you do get kind of taken into
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this one way kind of communication so to speak but I think the way I dealt with this was
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basically stick to facts as much as possible and if so I kind of focused on data.
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So my big thing was I'll try and use data to make my argument and I remember in the
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2014 in the run-up to the 2014 election I used to you know face a barrage of questions
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on the economy on inflation, fiscal deficits and this thing and that thing and what I would
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rely on is you know UPA's growth story, its poverty reduction story and of course there
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were problems as well but you know in development you have problems and there is no there is
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no kind of clean development model it's pretty you know you have to roll up your sleeves,
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you have to go knee-deep into mud and it's you know sometimes you have progress sometimes
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you regress but that's what economic development is so I think I kept that as my kind of compass
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So I would not just spew the party line I would actually try to kind of back by assertions
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So in that sense I created a space for myself which I thought was available and that's
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It's not easy of course because you know you know and writing this book actually you
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know it's not been that simple because I didn't want this to become oh there's a
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congress guy and he's written a book about Modi and against Modi so I didn't want it
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I tried my best actually to be as objective as possible.
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I've given the government credit wherever I could but for the most part you know I
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really feel the title reflects what I see about this government even though you disagree
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in fact others have told me that they don't agree with the title but for different reasons.
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No no when I was actually kidding what I meant was that reading the book was not a disappointment
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for me as far as Modi's term is I think calling it a disappointment is an understatement and
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I think you're absolutely right in the sense that one of the things that surprised me when
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I was reading the book is that there are moments when you're critical of the UPA especially
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UPA too and there are moments where you give credit where credit is due to Modi and we'll
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come to all of that but before we sort of come to the five-year period of 2014 to 2019
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which the book is about I'd like you to also set a sort of context for me in terms of what
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has happened in the Indian economy before that and if I can ask you one broad question
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that sitting in 2014 what are the broad lessons that policymakers could have taken from all
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those decades of governance of Independence India before that?
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Well you know the context for the book is you know to my mind the context for the book
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is twofold one is you know on a lighter note and that is the commissioning agent at Penguin
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had been after my life for two years she'd seen my articles and newspapers and all that
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she felt that I could write something and initially we thought we'd write about Kashmir
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then I said no I know the economy reasonably well and ultimately you know and with the
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elections approaching she said wouldn't you want to do an assessment of how this government
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is done and it was a compelling argument and I said okay yeah that makes sense to me I've
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done a three-year you know Modi-Namak said three earlier and then I said okay maybe I
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can just build on that but the more important context for this book is and then I'll get
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to the lessons what I think that were missed was this this slogan this kind of a statement
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by candidate Modi that he would do in 60 months what others have not done in 60 years that
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really stuck with me you know because I was in the middle of the campaign I would go on
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TV all the time and that particular statement was it really kind of drew people in but
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I knew from an economic development perspective how unfair it was to all those who had come
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before him so I think that is how actually I can if that gave me the kind of passion
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to write I think for me that was the most important thing in fact in this book I constantly
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talk about that and I wanted to see that's why I wrote inheritance the first part of
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this book is about inheritance what did different prime ministers receive as inheritance I talk
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about Nehru and the six million refugees which was the biggest refugee crisis outside of
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World War Two and also a lack of food I mean those were the big challenges Nehru faced
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and then I kind of list what other prime ministers faced and all that and then so in some sense
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that is the context I mean being unfair to predecessors belittling India's achievements
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and then trying to say that you would do something that I knew to be impossible but you know
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I think if you ask most people in India they'll say that demonetization and GST with big big
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issues that come to mind from an economic management perspective.
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From my perspective it is more about the banking sector I think that is the big you know lesson
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that they missed and that is banking sector problems do not resolve themselves easily
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right I mean and I think it was a budding banking sector crisis it was still I think
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much smaller than it is now at that time there's plenty of evidence from around the world that
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these crises need to be tackled sooner because you know the banking sector is the lifeblood
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of the economy and international institutions like the World Bank, ADB, IMF and by the way
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the government's own Department of Economic Affairs they'd all be the RBI everybody had
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been flagging this that this is a problem and I somehow feel that this was not addressed
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promptly and I think that may be one of the big reasons why the economy has not done as
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well and mind you the economy was slowing down before demonetization for several quarters
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before demonetization happened so I think that part of the reason is because the system
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was clogged up you know corporate balance sheets were also kind of stressed so I think
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that was one lesson the other lesson I mean obviously you know I didn't know there's
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so many lessons from international development from India's own experience we'd had joblessness
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for a long time we had high growth but still we were not creating the kinds of decent jobs
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that we need our young people to take on I don't think there was sufficient focus on
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that it was almost like you can just manufacture your way out of it without trying to understand
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that the world had moved on India had in some ways be industrialized for some time and I'm
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not sure why we were not focusing on issues like education and I think this government
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also missed that opportunity now why not education why not health why why not malnutrition Swachh
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Bharat is very important but malnutrition is what gives you productive citizenry for
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the future so when you have such a mandate when you have I don't know when some wealth
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of experience and we're still not doing the things that we need to do I you know I'm frankly
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puzzled so I don't know why I think the kind of you know in my question the kind of lessons
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I was referring to were not these specifics which we'll come to when we talk about the
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period the five-year period Modi's term but more about broader lessons for example much
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as Modi criticized Nehru and in fact blames him for everything he seems to have the same
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command and control approach to the economy which is perhaps not always apt as you point
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out and you know you've written in your book about you know in your section on Indira Gandhi
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you cite Bhagwati and Panagariya and about how the state's dominance over economic affairs
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cost India in those years 65 to 75 when India's per capita grew by 0.3 percent per annum
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GDP growth during that period averaged 2.6 percent and and eventually you know that mindset
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was thrust aside and you know there were some reforms in the 80s and then more in 91 obviously
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forced by demon forced by liberalization sorry so my broader question was that in terms of
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mindset in in Modi's rhetoric it seemed that he had made a lot of those shifts like you
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pointed out he branded himself as a sort of a Thatcherite conservative and whatever but
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in his actions none of those really manifested you know he had the same command and control
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mindset he had the same top-down view and you know the importance of the state and economic
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affairs in those sense what are the lessons that you would have liked to have seen what
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are the lessons that other policymakers had learned but Modi hadn't learned or internalized
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I think it's not about learning lessons in the sense that you know we know that there
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are lessons there are people who will learn them others who are just not you know prone
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to learning those kinds of things at all and I think Modi's you know Modi was never a
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decentralizer in Gujarat right I mean Modi's Modi was a strongman in Gujarat that's how
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he did things he was this decisive so I've been so so-called decisive leader who's going
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to basically will everything into shape and he managed lots of ministries and that's how
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he thought he would manage India and in fact I talk about this centralizing instinct you
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know I think in maybe the third part of the book well Panagariya basically talks about
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how you know Modi did this and that and he was really focused on getting projects moving
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and all that whereas I was thinking that you know he was centralizing things because that's
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what he knew that's who he was so it wasn't it's not as if he was suddenly going to change
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I personally believe that once you're beyond 30 you're not going to change your core habits
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so so I don't really think anybody should expect that he would somehow decentralize
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power and I think the lesson for us as citizens and also as observers is that you know it
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really a lot depends on who's running the government in a country like India where we
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have a parliamentary democracy at the same time we look to someone to lead us and here
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we have someone who does not believe in the kind of decentralization that India needs
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because India is too vast too diverse too complicated for any central force to run you
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know in fact you know my other research which I did not kind of incorporate in the book
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was about the role of states you know we talk a lot about the center we don't talk enough
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about the states it's easy to say that the Congress party or what did you guys do for
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60 years or meanwhile for the last 30 40 years the Congress has not been present in big states
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like Bihar and and UP where BJP has been present in fits and starts in these kinds of states
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and in Madhya Pradesh and all this so a lot of India's progress is about states it's about
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districts it's about the village level and I think that's where Prime Minister Rajiv
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Gandhi had the correct instinct and that was decentralized because that's what so you need
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somebody at the top will say you know what if India has to really progress the one good
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way to do that would be devolving more power to other parts and I don't think so even though
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lessons existed that you need to kind of have broad-based growth you need to you know decentralize
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you need local level kind of people to take up their development issues but those lessons
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could not have been learned by Modi because had he learned them he would have you know
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he would have paid attention to them in Gujarat as well but that's not who he is so to expect
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him to learn those lessons I think is you know to my mind would not be correct we should
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just basically say that same today it's Modi tomorrow it could be somebody else that's
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somebody else and the kind of power you wield may have something to do with what how India
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progresses in the future mind you that is that maybe one of the reasons coalitions are
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you have proven to be not the disaster that the BJP portrays them to be maybe coalitions
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are better because you have a lot of a give and take you don't have a central authority
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and you just kind of say okay everybody gets a piece of the pie and maybe that is how India
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can develop but having a strong central character I don't think it works I don't think it has
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worked I think it has worked to the detriment of the country in the last five years and
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every time there's a I fear that every time there's a centralizing force India does not
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stand to gain I agree with you and you know at a time where institutions are being weakened
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I think another advantage of a coalition government is that you have more checks and balances
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by default in the political economy where other institutions which are supposed to perform
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that role may not quite be able to before we get started on the book in the Modi years
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a final question about UPA 1 and UPA 2 now what mistakes do you think the Congress made
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which will cause their huge defeat in 2014 and obviously this period of time the 10 years
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before that are not a monolithic period there were periods of growth there were periods
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of very good economic management there were periods of very bad economic management such
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as when Pranam Mukherjee was finance minister for example and you know that reflected in
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all the data so you know what do you think was like in a sense a failure of at some level
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and you acknowledge this in the book as well they didn't do as well as they should have
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and that enabled Modi to sweep to power in 2014 can you can you kind of sum that up for
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me you know I think of Modi's rise and this amazing victory that the BJP had in 2014 it
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was like this perfect storm the economy was losing steam and I can I've talked about how
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that happened on the other hand you had these corruption scandals you know some of them
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were clearly scandals others were not as clear then you had vast kind of organized carder
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based party that was becoming an alternative and on the other hand you had you know this
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pent up demand from young people for jobs and a better life because they could see on
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the smartphones what other people around the world had and finally you had the messenger
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and was a very unique messenger and had been built up over the years as a kind of a messiah
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so this is a perfect storm of all these things coming together that I think delivered this
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victory it wasn't any one thing as far as the UPS time is concerned of course you're
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right I mean there was there were periods of high growth and good development poverty
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reduction but I think to my mind when we look at the 2008 crisis and the response to that
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and of course the response to that was a pretty big fiscal stimulus at that time by the way
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not as I record in the book not as big as what the US did and what China did but of
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course we did not face the same severity of the crisis as they did but I think we were
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not able to handle that because that really you know if you remember in the aftermath
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of the global financial crisis India's continued growing and then it kind of you know I think
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it was a sugar high in some ways and was hard to sustain sugar highs right so I think that
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was a problem of course that you know there was inflationary issues fiscal deficit and
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you know unfortunately the way we manage fiscal deficits in the country and this was true
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in our times too and more I think so even in this government's time you know you'll
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sell you'll basically you know you'll take one government owned entity and then take
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up a position in some other government take up the government stake in some other entity
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and then you say we balance the books and you know I think those kinds of things ultimately
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hurt hurt India or hurt an economy the other issue is that even we did not focus on you
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know what would sustain progress and to my mind you know and here Amartya Sen has been
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talking about it all the time and I know he gets a lot of great thoughts from the right
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but you know unless we invest in human capital human development there is no chance for India
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to succeed in today's world there's absolutely no chance so if you do not invest in health
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if you do not invest in education the right way if you do not actually spend the money
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properly I have this anecdote in the book about a village called Bandi Payin in Baramulla
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where I worked for two years before the 2014 election and Bandi Payin has eight government
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schools it's a one kilometer long half kilometer wide at its widest village with eight government
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schools one high school three middle schools four primary schools I don't know what the
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current situation is at that time that was the situation none of the schools had adequate
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teachers or students or there no furniture so what we should have had one school maybe
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even that may not have been viable for that village you could kind of create a model you
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could kind of consolidate you could bring in you know teachers to work in one place
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so teachers there would be enough teachers there'd be enough students but that's not
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how we've done things we've just kind of so before we increase the budget for these things
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I really would like to see more efficient spending also so I think that sustaining that
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progress you know of course I talked about the number of things that happened that led
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ultimately to our terrible defeat but I think we should have paid more attention to sustaining
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that progress and we should have also been more careful about the sugar high we had to
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kind of calibrate that better I think we did not and frankly I'm not in a position to tell
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why that may have been the case what they were thinking at that time I was in the US
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at that time I can tell you that the World Bank and the IMF we were very very worried
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extremely worried that the global economy was falling off a cliff and everybody was
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panicking frankly so I can't I can imagine that in India the policymakers must have been
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like wondering what can we do to stave this crisis off and they they did what they did
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but I wonder if we put enough thought into how progress could be sustained maybe we could
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have gone with slightly lower growth and then you know that meant smaller fiscal stimulus
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maybe calibrated that better of course the scandals that hit us I mean you know that
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is something that and the other thing is that if the scandals hit us where is the accountability
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so I think that we don't really have accountability mechanisms that are that really you know we
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should have something right I mean something happened and but even this comment has not
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been able to kind of hold people accountable and so I think it's all about political kind
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of maneuvering then so keeping people bogged down but I'm afraid that's not the way you
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know India can reach its potential I just don't.
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I had a recent episode with Pooja Mehra recently where you know we spoke about the political
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economy of those years in a fair bit of detail I'll put that link on my episode page for
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the listeners you know just a brief detour on education while you were talking about
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that I think one thing that both parties have consistently gone got wrong on education is
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something that in fact you referred to at the start as something that you know the World
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Bank taught you not to do which is to focus on inputs instead of outcomes and you know
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you you had the BJP in the 2014 manifesto saying we'll spend six percent of GDP on education
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and I think the Congress made a similar promise this time but that's just looking at the input
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and outputs are miserable and for that you need to look partly at the way education is
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structured the incentives in play the fact that the private sector is completely shut
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out through you know an immense amount of over regulation but you know leaving that
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aside there's a broader philosophical question really that I wanted to ask you about the
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political economy that doesn't apply to this party or to that party but you know the thought
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came to me when I I'll just quote from your book you quote these economists Kotwal Ghatak
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and Ghosh who pointed out about what the UPA was going through in 2014 quote it is a unique
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misfortune for any party to be charged with both crony capitalism and unbridled welfarism
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stop quote and you know the thought that struck me here was that this is actually an inevitable
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accusation for any government become because of the imperatives of politics on the one
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hand you have interest groups who have funded you whom you have to satisfy so crony capitalism
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seems inevitable and on the other hand you know you need to buy vote banks or you need
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to appeal to voters and the populism that leads to welfarism also seems inevitable so
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just as a broader question not as a member of one party or any party because I think
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this is a dilemma that the whole political system faces how does one get past this the
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analogy to this is the following when you talk about somebody who's a reformer they
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say do you want reforms do you want someone who's a pro-business person or do you want
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someone who's a pro-market person from my perspective pro-market right you don't want
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to be pro-business you don't want anybody to be pro-business you want somebody to create
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a level playing field you want markets to flourish and then people can compete that
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is what I've learned in my life that is what my training is that and I think evidence indicates
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that that is where people should be make these markets let them grow let them flourish and
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let people compete don't try to pick winners don't try to support one business versus another
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similarly as far as you know you want to promote capitalism yes but crony capitalism is this
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kind of disease that that is just not going to allow you to make decisions that would
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help you become a pro-market reform so it's all very well to say you know we need funding
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and we need funding to kind of fight elections because that's what we need and then we can
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once we are in government we can kind of do welfare politics the trouble is it doesn't
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really work that way in reality what what happens ultimately is that these interest
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groups they capture it's part of this elite capture right I mean there is a reason we
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have high inequality in India and growing and that is because we are perhaps not leveling
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the playing field we're not supporting markets we may be supporting Mr. X or Mrs. Y because
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they may fund us through through whatever means but we never tell people exactly what
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they're doing you know for us so as a citizen I want to know who is paying the government
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off and what is the government doing in return for this person we don't know we simply don't
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know and I don't I'm not blaming the Modi government for this or you know this is like
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a cross-government kind of thing now with electoral bonds it's kind of legalized corruption
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to my mind this is legalized corruption we can't have these kinds of things if we can't
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see the destitution in which so many millions of Indians live and then we don't correlate
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that with what is happening at the upper levels upper income levels then we just basically
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say okay you know what it's good to have you know at least we see that some people are
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progressing but that is not a model that India can really work with but that is a model that
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we're working with and this cronyism is is a special kind of disease I mean why can't
#
our corporates they already have a lead right they're already running ahead why can't they
#
just you know if they want to contribute to a party fine contribute tell people what you're
#
doing and then we'll see whether there is any quid pro quo but you already have a lead
#
and you want you want to pad that lead through influence peddling and all that stuff I think
#
that's what to my mind that hurts that hurts growth that is not pro-growth and we must
#
find ways and you know I keep telling my colleagues in the congress party as well we've got to
#
fight well we've already said that we're going to do away with electoral bonds but we want
#
to bring a lot more transparency to political finance because because without that I think
#
this cronyism will continue you'll continue to see jobless growth you'll continue to see
#
higher inequality and that is ultimately going to lead to some cataclysm in the future which
#
I worry about so if you don't change course this is what we'll get we'll get more of the
#
same yeah I could agree with you more about the need for transparency and and the problem
#
here you know as public choice theorists would say is one of diffuse costs and concentrated
#
benefits because you know you know the people who really lose out from the government being
#
pro-business instead of pro-markets are the people at large and the costs are diffused
#
and invisible often the unseen as it were whereas you know you have these interest groups
#
who have you know concentrated benefits so obviously they will lobby for whatever let's
#
let's kind of move on to the Modi years and you know one of the things that kind of struck
#
me about your book is that reading here it did not seem to me at all that this is coming
#
from someone partisan as you'd expect you know been given to the author as a congress
#
spokesperson but it didn't feel that way at all and you know I want to quote a couple
#
of sentences from your book on how you felt after Modi came to power quote I for one was
#
certain that transformation was around the corner given Modi's sweeping victory the massive
#
defeat of my own political party his oratory and genuine popularity as well as his stature
#
as the undisputed leader of the BJP stop quote and later on in the same page you say quote
#
the secret is out despite serious reservations I wanted Modi to succeed in transforming the
#
Indian economy I also hoped he would rein in the worst impulses of his political support
#
base that were damaging to the country stop quote and you know one the basic thesis of
#
your book which you set out is that given what he promised what he has delivered is
#
a great disappointment which of course is true and you make that case very well but
#
all of this also seems to indicate that you actually liked some of what he promised oh
#
yeah I mean of course I mean you know the the talk was of reforms the talk was of transforming
#
you know the economy in ways that you know basically taking a different trajectory so
#
you know whenever you hear about reforms somebody like myself has been trained in this area
#
and you know we always hope that leaders come in and they or governments come in and they
#
enact the kinds of reforms that are needed because in India of course you know we still
#
are looking for some of those reforms so I think those kinds of things one couldn't disagree
#
with right I mean they talked about the banking sector had problems they tried talked about
#
fixing those problems I mean who could disagree with that they talked about ease of doing
#
business and how they wanted to improve on that and who could disagree with that because
#
you knew that those are the kinds of things that are needed so the rhetoric was a lot
#
of the rhetoric was good right I mean who would disagree with you know the streamlining
#
food supply chain you know from the farms to the dining table I mean the rhetoric was
#
great it was excellent but and that is what I you know was saying yeah agriculture needs
#
reforms I mean that's where so many of our people are employed and that needs reforms
#
so and you know talking about government needs to be reformed government needs to be more
#
efficient and this is all that we heard during the 2014 election so of course you know let's
#
face it I mean people like us I mean we are we have a very comfortable life but there's
#
so many millions of people who are very very poor they they are like second-class citizens
#
and there's very little hope for them and and then you have something where you say
#
okay you know what if the economy does well if the growth is broad-based if it is inclusive
#
these people have a chance that if not them at least the children will see a better a
#
better life that's what you want that's what you aspire for that's what you aspire to that's
#
what you you know it's always dream off and I think in that sense yeah I was I was very
#
hopeful and that is why I can call it the great disappointment because those things
#
did not pan out the way I had hoped they would now or the way we had been you know led to
#
believe I know you know during the launch of this book in Delhi Raghav Bhel at the quaint
#
he was on the panel and he said that this is the great betrayal not the great disappointment
#
and I think I've heard something similar from other people why did you call it the great
#
disappointment why didn't you call it the great betrayal or worse and I said because
#
I was hopeful and I mean as somebody who wants reforms who wants good for wants something
#
positive to happen to those who don't have a voice in a political discourse who are living
#
in on the margins you want something good to happen for them and yeah so that's yeah
#
I wanted to believe it and that's the truth I also were worried of course I worried about
#
the RS's BJP politics and that never ends well frankly of dividing people polarizing
#
people and that by the way it can be detrimental to the economy as well and I think that's
#
what we will see that in the future too if this continues it is going to have an impact
#
right so you know the sentiment that Raghav expressed of it being a great betrayal is
#
one that I totally get because a lot of free market supporters and you know conservatives
#
in that sense reformers had a lot of hope of Modi for example to quote from your book
#
you have something about his manifesto here quote the manifesto boldly declared BJP to
#
be a modern and inclusive party relegating its pet projects such as the Ram temple uniform
#
civil code and cow protection to the peripheries of the document stop quote and one thing I've
#
kind of wondered is now that you know they've turned the other way they've completely turned
#
their back on reform and everything comes down to the kind of polarizing politics that
#
they seem to have you know put on the back burner what I'm wondering is that why this
#
rebranding as a conservative thatcher right in the first place it was obviously a false
#
rebranding but what drove the rebranding was it the visual thinking of free market supporters
#
like Raghav or was it his own short positioning and if he was repositioning himself in that
#
way I'm a little confused about why because there aren't too many of us so you know where
#
did he see the advantage in that I think I tackled this part in part two of the book
#
where I kind of talk about his rise and you know I've written about this and others have
#
too that you know Gujarat it isn't as if when you know under Modi Gujarat was so exceptional
#
that Gujarat was never like that Gujarat had been growing at high rates for a long time
#
and but of course Modi somehow there was this I don't know I found all these disparate kind
#
of loose kind of connections to people kind of coming up with this idea of oh there's
#
a reformer he's doing great things in Gujarat the vibrant Gujarat summits and he really
#
wants he's a limited government guy and I talk about actually there's an interesting
#
Google hangout that I mentioned with Sadhanand Dubey and Milan Vashnav and Neher Sharma and
#
James Crabtree and they're all kind of debating this idea whether this guy is thatcher right
#
or is he something else and but there was an effort and I think the effort was it was
#
in some ways to my mind it was about evolving a different image I mean of course Modi's
#
image had been tainted by Gujarat 2002 and I think there was a concerted effort to kind
#
of build him up as something different and maybe even somewhat liberal somewhat you know
#
he's a reformer and he wants an efficient government he's anti-corruption he talks
#
about bringing in power supply he talks about daughters so I think there was clearly an
#
attempt and I think some people did it because they wanted to help him and maybe that was
#
part of the rebranding others maybe needed someone to latch on to like I think frankly
#
Bhagwati wanted to basically say that yes finally we have someone who understands us
#
maybe Bhagwati went with that hope that this is what I've been advocating there's a guy
#
you know who talks like this at least or maybe this is this guy is truly a reformer without
#
going deeper into whether or not he was a reformer or not and also sidelining what his
#
past was in 2002 and before that so maybe there was hope for people like Bhagwati you
#
know because they've been desperately looking for someone who is right of center in a country
#
that is deeply left of center or has been for a long long time so I don't know maybe
#
it's a combination a concerted effort to refurbish a tainted image and then also hope on the
#
right of the economic spectrum that we finally found somebody who is our own and I think
#
that did not really work well and you know one of the things that is almost poignant
#
in a sense for me is that a lot of these supporters you know who might have supported him for
#
good reasons at the time once it all began to unravel they continued rationalizing their
#
support for him you know for example Bhagwati wrote an article in support of demonetization
#
after it happened and demonetization had a bunch of other cheerleaders who really should
#
have known better because it's you know econ 101 tells you that that's a disaster and you
#
know which is kind of sad but in general like you said you were hopeful at the start in
#
2014 and so were a lot of other people at what point did one begin to realize that it
#
wasn't as you know there wasn't so much reason for hope like you have a quote in your book
#
from who writes in 2015 quote instead of clarity there is confusion you get the sense there
#
is no coherence to the economic narrative it will swirl with the wind not giving confidence
#
to anyone stop quote and and things have already changed by then when did you begin to realize
#
that all this was just rhetoric and nothing was going to happen I think for me it was
#
I don't know I mean I can't really pinpoint the date because I felt that the honeymoon
#
didn't last as long as I thought it would last frankly and when he went into the land
#
fight you know remember they started going after the land act early on I wasn't quite
#
sure you know whether it was a reformist move or was it because it wasn't being done at
#
the best of some particularly large groups of businesses so I wasn't sure about that
#
for me I think when I saw the first year the first year didn't seem like anything special
#
because there's nothing you know I would have liked to see even then a little bit on the
#
banking sector I didn't really see a lot on that and I think there was this move to kind
#
of get stalled projects moving you could see that land act you know you could have gone
#
both ways you know yeah maybe he's a reformist move maybe he's just doing it as part of helping
#
some friends but when he started kind of you know when he when Rahul Gandhi landed that
#
jab of the suit boot and by the way that whole suit thing I think that really worried me
#
actually the suit thing was emblematic of what I've been seeing in other places actually
#
so that the suit thing bothered me because the suit thing told me that maybe this guy
#
is not as big as he appeared to be you know maybe he's you know he's like a regular strongman
#
who is insecure who likes these cheap things and if that is the case maybe this is not
#
a broad-minded kind of person so the suit thing really did bother me a lot it came as
#
a warning sign I must tell you that it was not about oh it's ten lakh rupees got suit
#
and all that it was more about what the thinking is behind wearing and if someone were to give
#
me a million dollar suit which is Salman and his souls I would never wear it it's just
#
I don't know I would know I'm sure you would not wear it I mean who does that only somebody
#
who's kind of has some sort of in some sort of a complex I don't know and the strongmen
#
do come with those kinds of things and they do kind of ultimately like themselves in trouble
#
I think that was it the revision of the GDP in January of 2015 and not having the back
#
series within a matter of months I think that also told me something about the government
#
I think that was many people did not talk about it then but I felt that was a problem
#
and so yeah I think there was a warning signs early on by the way I document in the book
#
that some of his closest supporters were even more pressure because they kind of showed
#
unease early on not people like me his own supporters so maybe they were more impatient
#
I was maybe willing to you know go along and see how it turns out but I would say within
#
the first year itself I think it was clear that this wasn't going to be a reformist
#
Right so let's talk about like you know you've got a very detailed breakdown of all the things
#
that went wrong so let's kind of start talking about them one by one and one of them of course
#
is the whole Make in India project and you know as part of when you're talking about
#
the analysis of the Make in India project and how it went wrong you also quote Raghuram
#
Rajan from you know contrasting India with China and saying that look what worked for
#
China may not work well for us we're developing differently it's a different time and quote
#
we should be agnostic about what will work stop quote and this seemed to me to be a very
#
profound point especially you know you quote Hayek at the start of the chapter and it seems
#
that one quality which policy makers should always have when they're making policy is
#
epistemic humility that you can't actually control everything and you have to let society
#
in the market work some things out and and this is completely and the Make in India seems
#
to sort of showcase some of this top-down drive that Modi has tell me a little bit about
#
what was wrong with it and what went wrong well there's something it's a very basic
#
point I think when China and of course Korea started their labor intensive push that was
#
40 years back the world has changed the world is very different now compared to what the
#
world was then I mean at a at a very basic level you've got to at least pause and think
#
and you know this is not just for Modi this is for my own party this is for other policy
#
makers let's face it 2020 is not 1980 okay if it is not a lot has changed and technology
#
has a lot to do with that you cannot start thinking of developing the way some country
#
did in 1980 you can learn some lessons from that but you can't just say okay now I'm
#
going to replicate that model because that's not who you are that's not that's not the
#
time you're living in so I don't really get why it is so hard for people to understand
#
that you know oh we can't just replicate this country's model that that country's model
#
yes you can adapt things and all that but you you must kind of also look at you know
#
there's plenty of material written on this about how developing countries are not able
#
to not just India other countries are not able to replicate the Chinese one and there
#
are good reasons for that so this whole idea that I have to push this manufacturing output
#
to 25 percent of GDP I'm going to do this that I think perhaps there is some hubris
#
about how one person one strong government can do this and that you know I can dictate
#
this level of manufacturing output but that's not how decision makers who are at the firm
#
level make the decisions their decisions are about whether or not they're going to make
#
some money out of it they don't care if they may vote for Modiji but they're not going
#
to vote by they're not going to you know pay for it they're just going to do what is in
#
their self-interest and their interest is in making money their interest is not in losing
#
money just because they have to vote for Modiji or to make his making India projects successful
#
so I think frankly the biggest reason I think was that the Indian economy is very different
#
you know structurally and the time is very different and setting these targets away within
#
five years or ten years we're going to do this and it's going to be 25 percent and knowing
#
that it has been stagnant for a while despite all effort and knowing that this technology
#
that actually is and India is a capital intensive country to begin with at least its manufacturing
#
sector is so knowing all that still trying to kind of say are we going to have labor
#
intensive industrialization and I don't know I think it's just basically you're not willing
#
to accept there is a reality that you must contend with and you think that you can just
#
change reality because you're in government it doesn't work that way.
#
Right we'll take a quick commercial break and we'll be back.
#
Hello everybody welcome to a great new week of shows on the IVM podcast network if you're
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This week we got a couple of new shows launching the first one we have is 80KT Talent 10th
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On Cyrus says sports presenter and commentator Ronak Kapoor talks about how his school life
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World Cup in Australia and more on Paisa Vaisa Anupam is joined by financial educator and
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On the Ronnie Scruwala podcast dreaming with your eyes open Ronnie talks to me about his
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early life moving from Grant Road to British Candy organizing a rock concert in his youth
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and taking calculated risks in life.
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On dating his garbage Abbas and Janam talked to Zain and Avanti the hosts of marbles lost
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and found about the role of mental health in a relationship.
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On what a player Akash and Siddhartha joined by fellow comedian Mikhail Almeda to discuss
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the last week of the ongoing cricket league before the playoffs.
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On The Habit Coach Ashton talks about financial health the relationship one develops with
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money and how it leaves an impact on our body.
#
On Pulliyabazi Pranay and Saurabh talked to Shambhavi Nayak a fellow at the Takshashila
#
Institute about gene sequencing and how is changing our understanding of heredity and
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human history and with that let's get you on with your show.
#
Welcome back to the scene in the unseen I'm chatting with Salman Sohs about his book The
#
Great Disappointment and how Modi let all of us down.
#
You know another opportunity missed perhaps by the Modi government was which you mentioned
#
was a remarkable windfall they got with the low oil prices like in your book you talk
#
about how between 2011 and 2014 crude prices averaged 108.5 dollars per barrel between
#
2015 and 2017 they averaged only 59.3 dollars per barrel and the Modi government could have
#
chosen to pass this or a significant part of this to the consumers so that we would
#
have more money to spend but he didn't tell me a little bit about this.
#
Yeah actually I'm a little puzzled by this you know of course I mean there are deficit
#
hawks because people believe that fiscal deficits can land you in deep trouble that was the
#
experience of the global financial crisis and of course you want to protect the macro
#
economic situation but you know like I talked about earlier you know when the UP was in
#
power and perhaps the fiscal stimulus ended up being too much in this particular case
#
I think the fiscal restraint was just too much I mean you think of what was going on
#
and you know I've spoken about this earlier in other conversations.
#
In 2014 and 2015 there were two successive droughts when you have successive droughts
#
what is the policy framework that you employed you actually went with the minimum support
#
prices that you had you actually kept them you know pretty low the growth was pretty
#
low in fact Suryan Pallar wrote a column on how this is amazing and it's kind of you know
#
in fact there's you know he was very happy so when you have a demand compression you
#
your policy response at that time was that it was contractionary then you had this great
#
windfall and the prime minister called himself Deepwala wonderful fine of course it's helping
#
you lower your inflation it's helping you maintain your fiscal deficit at reasonable
#
levels you're going on the glide path towards a three percent fiscal deficit target but
#
then why do you why do you take this entire windfall and you know take it for the government
#
I don't really get it it's not as if government spending is very efficient I mean I would
#
get it if government spending was more efficient than household spending but it isn't I think
#
we all know that so what I thought should have been done was because the economy was
#
you know facing some headwinds in terms of the agricultural sector not doing well you
#
kind of say you know what we loosen the purse strings a little bit we keep some of the windfall
#
but pass some of the windfall over to consumers let them spend but they instead what they
#
did was they actually you know this was the second contractionary policy so it was exactly
#
the opposite of what I felt should have been done so you took MSPs and you know in some
#
ways flatlined them then you took the oil windfall and you basically kept it for yourself
#
and of course I'm sure wasted a lot of money and sure enough your investments were not
#
doing well anyway your exports were not doing well anyway and of course you charted a path
#
towards demonetization and I think there are five quarters of declining growth before demonetization
#
if I'm not mistaken so I don't get it I don't understand I really don't understand why this
#
path was followed I don't understand why they needed a contractionary policy at a time when
#
the economy was not doing well I could understand it if the economy was overheating and then
#
they wanted to curb the growth but here there was no evidence that the economy was overheating
#
so I'm puzzled so I want to again ask you a broader question but taking off from this
#
issue you know I'll quote again from your book where you say quote I am not convinced
#
that more revenues in the hand of the government is a good thing the quality of government
#
spending is dubious and at a time when the economy was recovering from the blows of demonetization
#
and the GST a little bit of help for consumers could have had a salutary effect on the economy
#
stop quote and I was very struck by this sort of first line of more revenues in the hands
#
of the government not necessarily being a good thing because very often you see governments
#
especially the Modi government recently boasting about higher tax revenues and whenever I hear
#
that boast I always think that hey that's a bad thing because you've got more money
#
passing from the productive part of the economy to the parasitic part of the economy what
#
is your is that your general philosophic view or did you mention or did you mean it only
#
in this context no I mean look I mean it's a tricky part for me right I mean on the one
#
hand you know I I do feel that government spending can be pretty you know is relatively
#
inefficient especially in countries like India in many other countries it may be somewhat
#
inefficient but it's also you know you provide the kinds of services that people really need
#
and so it's kind of a social contract right I mean you pay me money I deliver you certain
#
services and the government has a role of course the public sector has a role and I'm
#
happy to by the way note here just a bit of a plug for the Congress manifesto that we
#
talk about the role of the private sector as a lead for investments and and growth the
#
government being in a supporting role for the provision of public goods now in India's
#
case I think there is plenty of evidence which suggests that we don't spend the government
#
doesn't spend money well and so to say that all now we have a lot more money to spend
#
unwisely I think is you know not a good thing in fact I think we've created this whole environment
#
where we say oh everything is corruption everything is black money everything is bad and I think
#
that is that is hurting the economy frankly because you know when you have money in the
#
hands of people in a country like India where government spending is not very efficient
#
I think it's okay I think that's where you might create opportunities in fact if you
#
leave more money in the hands of people and let them make their decisions and you as government
#
actually really let them do their work get get out of the way India might actually progress
#
faster because India is not Europe India is not America India is India India's government
#
systems are have very limited I think implementation capacity so in that kind of a scenario I
#
think letting the people do their own heavy lifting might be better so I'm all for leaving
#
more I'm I'm not convinced by the argument that the government should have more revenues
#
and that will do amazing things because if that were the case then the money that the
#
government had would be spent much more wisely and we would not have you know eight government
#
schools in Bandipayin or by the way we would not have a middle school right in the heart
#
of Baramulla town where there were nine kids in eight grades and twelve teachers I mean
#
so we have to keep in mind that in India in India's context we're not talking about other
#
countries we're talking about India in India's context where by the way accountability is
#
limited anyway more money in the hands of government is not necessarily a good thing
#
and so I when people talk about higher tax revenues I'm not the whole tax business is
#
just it's become too much it's like a it's another kind of vested interest you know you
#
know how how how money exchange you know money changes hands in India through this tax system
#
and tax officers and all that so I really think that that was not a good policy move
#
you know in terms of yeah I mean you want you want of course you want the government
#
to provide public services good services but then there should be evidence that that is
#
being done I don't think that is being done right moving on I mean as we talk about you
#
know all the different policies of the Modi government the one where I'm not going to
#
spend much time though you've written very eloquently about it in your book is demonetization
#
for the simple reason that I've had I think three episodes on demonetization that's why
#
you know Manmohan Singh called it organized loot and legal plunder Ajay Shah called it
#
macroeconomic trauma I described it at the time in a column for the times as the largest
#
assault on property rights in human history it's just such a disaster that I don't even
#
think there is a need for sensible people you know have to be convinced yeah so we'll
#
kind of pass over demon but now you know the GST is very interesting because you know demon
#
was just a bad idea period but GST is actually a very good idea which was badly implemented
#
in fact Yashwant Sinha once referred to the implementation of it as a potential Harvard
#
case study for what not to do and you know as you've quoted him in your book which is
#
where I get it from tell me a little bit about what went wrong with GST and my sort of follow
#
up question to that also is that even if you like a lot of the things that went wrong were
#
due to political imperatives because different states were saying no put this rate and put
#
that rate on this and this rate on that and you had interest groups in the picture so
#
if the GST used to be fixed like let's say if the Congress comes to power inshallah and
#
the GST is to be fixed will the political imperatives allow that to happen well first
#
a broad philosophical point on GST or indirect taxes I think we've taken the easy way out
#
on tax policy and the easy way out is just impose an indirect tax and everybody gets
#
to pay but you know you and I know from economic theory that this is these are regressive taxes
#
and I think we are the share of indirect taxes has been growing even it was growing earlier
#
as well it's now well past 50 percent we're really putting an undue burden on poorer sections
#
and lower income sections and I think we must reverse course on indirect taxation or at
#
least we should you know as a share of tax revenues I think direct taxes should be higher
#
and the interesting thing is that very few people in India talk about it and I don't
#
know why but be that as it may the GST again it goes to look at the state the state has
#
very limited capacity and then you're asking the state to implement a tax system that is
#
inherently very complicated because of all the different rate structures you have additional
#
kind of assesses and other things and what is this and what is that what rate do you
#
apply here you've got to you know keep things a little simple and they called it the good
#
and simple tax but it wasn't it was anything but good and simple so the other thing is
#
that I don't think enough homework was done in terms of how other countries have I think
#
we refuse to learn from other countries I just it's almost as if we know everything
#
we don't know everything Malaysia by the way had been trying to prevent this thing and
#
their GST they prepared their I think there was a preparation time of about 18 months
#
maybe longer you know from the time they took the decision here we're just kind of here
#
I think they spend more time on kind of figuring out how to do a midnight parliamentary session
#
to roll this out than they did in trying to figure out whether the technology backbone
#
would really work you know there's there's a wealth of information on on these kinds
#
of taxes around from around the world look at what the experience has been but we spend
#
much more time debating whether we should have it or not have it and far too little
#
time to discuss how it would be done what would make sense and it was almost as if just
#
do GST and you'll have a two percentage point increase in your GDP growth honestly I think
#
many of the somebody would talk about Goldman Sachs doing a report and saying that this
#
would be a bump of this much growth and all that I think people were far more enamored
#
of that oh GST is going to come and suddenly everything is going to be okay I think this
#
for the next government or for future governments the lesson is you know the pretty much whatever
#
you do things are not going to pan out the way you had hoped for now the thing is what
#
exactly should you be doing in advance to plan and you know see the kinks but actually
#
we should have already kind of seen what happens if you think about demonetization I don't
#
want to go back to that details or that crazy policy but how they implemented even that
#
they implemented that bad idea terrible idea in a terrible way kept coming up with new
#
notifications and changes they did the same for GST of course in GST now you have this
#
council and everybody says oh this pet food of mine should be exempted that thing should
#
not be exempted so this is a crazy kind of crazy tax in a very kind of to be implemented
#
by a disorganized bureaucracy with a low implementation capacity and what can go wrong everything
#
can go wrong and that is what happened this acted as yet one you know one big huge speed
#
bump for the economy I don't think we can come out of this anytime soon if it continues
#
this way I'm not confident that this is going to increase I don't think this is going to
#
be good for the country frankly if they continue with this structure this is a crazy structure
#
it needs to be disbanded or abandoned by the way some other countries did abandon the GST
#
as a whole forget reforming it they just abandoned it it's a very you know you have a country
#
that is so diverse and then suddenly you're trying to you know reform the system and you
#
try to do it in one fell swoop and without any planning without any proper planning preparation
#
you'll have a disaster that's what happened one of the areas in which people had a lot
#
of hopes of the Modi government was privatization you heard a lot about so many PSUs and people
#
would draw graphs of okay here's how the number of PSUs have increased through the decades
#
and they've actually increased even more and you know my good friend Sadanand Dhumey you've
#
quoted him in your book summing it all up and I'll quote him as well start quote in
#
effect India's privatization program has become a dodgy accounting exercise in which one government
#
owned entity buys stakes in another rather than an attempt to streamline the economy
#
by selling unproductive assets to private bidders stop quote and this is really so
#
bizarre because at least in privatization one assumed that there were a lot of low-hanging
#
fruit that they could just get rid of and they did absolutely nothing well yeah and
#
again I'm puzzled because I don't understand you know if prime minister Modi in his first
#
year had made the case imagine prime minister Modi when he became prime minister at the
#
peak of his popularity said to the country look the Congress left me a terrible problem
#
with banks and I need to do something drastic and I need to fix the system it'll mean taxpayer
#
money will going to be used for whatever and but I had to do it it's not my fault but I
#
have to rescue this country I have to rescue that's what I'm here for I don't think people
#
would have blamed it I think people would have been happy I mean they would have at
#
least given him a chance in a similar vein if he had said you know what Air India has
#
been bleeding money for a long time this is not a viable way to do business it doesn't
#
seem to be working I have said myself that we've been to kind of reform some of these
#
things we're going to sell this thing off I don't think people would have said Modi
#
you're wrong they would have said okay you know he came to reform things and he's reforming
#
things but as I write in the book people did not believe that he was a reformer of that
#
sort in fact I don't think he believes in a smaller public sector you know I believe
#
in a more efficient public sector I believe in a more you know constrained public sector
#
because I want the government to focus on things that the private sector is not able
#
to deliver properly the private sector cannot deliver you national defense the private private
#
sector will not to my mind do a good job with you know say police forces or justice and
#
all the stuff right I don't think he believes that I think he's just he thinks that government
#
can do everything and his government can do everything so maybe I should not be puzzled
#
after all these years I think that's who he is I don't think you know and by the way that's
#
what maybe most politicians in India think that we should have these kinds of things
#
in Air India is great and you know we should have a flag carrier and all this stuff I don't
#
know I think people may think like that I personally do not believe that taxpayer money
#
should be spent when there is no hope of you know recovery in some of these enterprises
#
now there are some things where you really need big public sector kind of giants to kind
#
of do certain types of businesses they can be strategic in nature other countries have
#
them too and they do they seem to do well they some of them are doing well in India
#
as well but I can't make that case for most of them I think so if I can't make that case
#
for most of them you know you know what my feeling would be about this investment yeah
#
I mean I often make the case that what India needs is a strong and limited government that
#
does a few things very well instead of a large and diffuse government that does nothing well
#
I mean we effectively don't have a rule of law in most of the country you know I did
#
an episode recently with Pooja Mehra who's also written a book by the same publisher
#
the Lost Decade yeah she talks about the Modi years and the and the point that she kind
#
of makes was that it was political imperatives that caused him number one to move away from
#
reforms because many of these reforms were complicated thing around which you couldn't
#
build a simple narrative so you know why bother if there's no short-term political payoff
#
and at the same time which drew him towards disasters like demonetization for example
#
not because of what impact it would have which he didn't give a damn about but because of
#
how it could be packaged as something that is anti-black money and will help the poor
#
and so on and so forth and how far do you think Modi was driven purely by political
#
imperatives and and you know that was responsible for what has happened I think Modi is nothing
#
if he's not a political animal I think clearly politics plays a large role in the decisions
#
he's taken I think in that sense Pooja is right you know politics did drive say demonetization
#
because it was packaged as a hit against black money and all that then you know the question
#
is then basically we were all kind of hoping for something that would never happen because
#
if a person like that who by all accounts is you know like for his oratory and all that
#
and can convince people to go with him pretty much very often or at least used to be if
#
that person is not going to kind of level with the country and say look this makes sense
#
to me we are wasting hard-earned taxpayer money on things that we should not be spending
#
on then in that sense we never really want us you know we should then be careful about
#
what we think of in the future we should basically be hoping for coalition governments honestly
#
because we don't really need a strong central character because a strong central character
#
can be much more destructive for India with the weight for this benign dictator can take
#
a lifetime and who knows how that would pan out and these things don't pan out well now
#
in Modi's case I really thought that he might make some decisions which I mean what what
#
is tough about you know telling the country that you know the UPA gave me a bad deal on
#
banks and I need to fix it otherwise you will not have jobs that's a pretty simple argument
#
to make I think people would have believed it it was just that he was not focused on
#
that I think he was focused on administrative efficiency and how projects that were stalled
#
would move forward I think he was thinking small he was not thinking big he was really
#
I think he was thinking very small so somebody must have told him that you know if we have
#
higher taxes people are not paying taxes we need to increase the tax revenues so yeah
#
okay you know let's let's go after that but that's thinking small that's not thinking
#
broad that's not thinking big so I don't know maybe he's a he's a victim of his own
#
kind of ambitions in terms of in policy maybe he's a you know he has a narrow base to think
#
on I think that's the only explanation I can come up with I don't really know why he did
#
not make even the simplest no it's an easy decision I don't know I don't get it I'm
#
honestly I'm puzzled right you know and I'm just thinking aloud here at something that
#
a friend of mine who was very close to Modi once upon a time in his Gujarati he was once
#
told me and she mentioned how there was a social gathering at his house and he started
#
telling a story at one point about how when he was a kid his mother was very ill and he
#
was a boy then and he went to switch on the fan and when he flicked the switch he realized
#
that there was no electricity and then he decided that if there's one thing I can do
#
I'll focus on electricity and therefore when he becomes CM of Gujarat you know he focuses
#
on electrification and all my friends point in telling me the story basically was that
#
his view of the world is very experiential if he has experienced something directly then
#
he gives it importance like the lack of electricity or roads or so on those physical things where
#
he can see with his own eyes that yes this makes a difference but for a man who doesn't
#
apparently read too many books either when it comes to higher abstract concepts which
#
you need to grasp when you talk about how an economy functions especially when so many
#
of the fundamental economic truths you and I know like you know like all trade being
#
positive sum instead of zero sum or spontaneous order the way markets organize themselves
#
all of these higher level concepts is not something he would ever have grasped because
#
he hasn't experienced it directly and he has no way of doing so and and for this reason
#
I sometimes call him the Akho Dekhi Prime Minister and again I'm just speculating here
#
do you think there is something to this that I mean in the sense that a politician therefore
#
also needs to be well read and well versed in abstract ideas so you get a better sense of all
#
of this? You know you can't wing economic development you know this is far too complex
#
I mean anybody who basically decides to do demonetization has clearly not spent much
#
time thinking about policies and their implications you know I think you're right you may find it
#
easier to say look there's open defecation I'm going to build more toilets we need more girls
#
education because that's what I've been told is you know we need more girls education while
#
they're studying or there's no busily here and I would need to kind of flick a switch in so that
#
there's power I think yes but in today's world policy making is so complex there's so much
#
going on there's so many you press one button then something else goes wrong and then you're
#
trying to control for that and you can't control for that and you know not everything is in your
#
own kind of hands you will have quantitative easing in the U.S. that'll have an impact on
#
your currency that'll have an impact on flows of capital so you need obviously what no single person
#
would have all that experience clearly but you should have some basic humility to know that you
#
don't know everything that's one second that you build a team or you have a team of people
#
advisors and all that who can kind of give you different perspectives you must listen you should
#
be a good listener I think and you should be willing to take advice and you should be willing
#
to say you know what I'm wrong this is not I thought of it in the incorrect way this expertise
#
is really useful here but I don't think you know from what I gather I don't think people are that
#
keen to give him advice because maybe they're scared of giving him advice or maybe he doesn't
#
listen to advice who knows I mean if you can do demonetization without taking the RBI or your
#
finance minister into confidence which is alleged then then you know that we're in trouble right I
#
mean so yeah you may be right about this experiential kind of instinct you know making
#
policy based on that because those are things that you can do you can deliver but in terms of if you
#
cannot in economic development in in governance in policy making you have to have a broad-based team
#
who can actually help inform you who can help educate you and you know that would be anybody
#
it's not just you know tomorrow I mean you could be the prime minister of the country but even you
#
would need tons of you know support no matter how broad-based your economic training has been so I
#
think in that sense he too you know I think needs a lot of help I'm not sure he thinks he needs it
#
but I do think he needs it I mean yeah as I said earlier I think the most important quality for
#
anybody in a position of power is epistemic humility and that's something that we've kind of
#
consistently lacked you've you know so you've got a couple of great chapters on what the policies and
#
programs of the government were and what the results were and I'll just encourage all my
#
listeners to buy the book and read that there's some great detail in there I want to sort of stick
#
to broader questions one of which being what did he get right in that time I know that's a hard
#
time I know that's a hard question you know to my mind some of the things that I think he
#
deserves good credit for is something like bringing attention to you know clean India
#
right Swachh Bharat I think that kind of personal attention and relentless attention I think that's
#
a kind of a national level kind of even I mean forget what happened on the ground and all this
#
just creating awareness I think leaders should be creating awareness about issues of national
#
importance you know educating the girl child these kinds of things are I think these are
#
things that are aspirational in some ways for a country like India and it's good to kind of you
#
know for leaders to kind of wear their kind of thoughts on their sleeves in some ways and say
#
look this is important to me I really want and especially if you're a popular leader and you
#
use your popularity to kind of bring awareness because a lot of the times we're simply not aware
#
despite all the smartphones and technology and everything most people you know we just we get
#
used to seeing things from our own perspective we never kind of uh it's hard for us to kind of
#
you know look at things from a broader perspective and having a leader like that talk about these
#
kinds of issues I think is very very important and I think it's very helpful so I would say on
#
these kinds of issues I have kind of in my book also kind of said that yes he's talked a good
#
game and he's kind of led on these and I think he should get credit for these kinds of things
#
you know coming up with these indices for cities which one is clean which is not you know may not
#
pay immediate dividends but ultimately may prove that there's some competition and you know maybe
#
it may help cities to kind of you know take pride in the work that they're doing in terms of keeping
#
the cities clean creating a more welcoming kind of environment for people he's talked a good game
#
on tourism and but you know in terms of you know ease of visas and all that stuff making india
#
feel more welcome but you know of course the other the flip side is that we need to do a lot more on
#
safety I think that has fallen by the wayside because you know we need we our police is still
#
a force not a service and I think there I think that it's both a positive in terms of trying to
#
create a better image for india but at the same time not doing the basics that are needed so you
#
know that that's the kind of I sometimes get frustrated by this whole good talk aspirational
#
talk and then under delivery of the basics I think that's where I feel a little bit of
#
frustration with the government but there are other things too you know they did finally push
#
through IBC yes they did the GST of course the GST is a mess but at least you know he was able
#
to push it through now we'll have to kind of you know now we have it in the constitutional framework
#
and now we can kind of maybe do wholesale reform or not once and for all but at least in a major
#
way I think IBC happened a bit late in my view but even then I think IBC is now hampered I mean
#
you know the bankruptcy code I don't know if how well that is being implemented right now I don't
#
know but at least you know he moved on that ease of doing business I think frankly they're trying
#
to game the system genuinely ease of doing business would be when everybody around the country
#
would feel that yes it's easier to do business I don't think that's happening I think because
#
there's more coercion these days I'm told on businesses than used to be the case so even
#
though the World Bank has recognized India as having done a lot on ease of doing business I
#
think that may be more through gaming the system you know Putin once told his officials that he
#
wanted Russia to be in the top 30 by a certain number of years and I think they're all scurrying
#
to figure out how they would do it within the stipulated time and they did it so you know when
#
you have the threat of Putin hanging over your head you can you can do that and I think in Modi's
#
case too they managed to gain this I think managed to gain the system a little bit but
#
honestly I don't think there's a lot that I'm happy about I really think this is a missed
#
opportunity really missed opportunity and people like you and I will be okay but people who could
#
have benefited disproportionately I think they're not going to be okay. So before I ask you about
#
you know the state of the economy today just a tangential thought I mean obviously you're right
#
about you know when I saw the EODB these things I figured that yeah wherever there are metrics
#
they can be gamed so this is like an evolving game where you have to keep taking the metrics
#
deeper and deeper but so here's a tangential question because you mentioned the IBC the
#
bankruptcy code that where it's apparently at is that while the IBC is a welcome reform where we
#
are stuck is that state capacity simply isn't enough so now because of state capacity not
#
being enough you're kind of stuck now you're someone who could hopefully you know maybe be
#
in government one day and in a position to carry out reforms when you are in that position besides
#
the immediate considerations of the political economy do you also have to take into account
#
whether there is enough state capacity for those reforms to happen at all? Oh yeah absolutely I
#
mentioned it earlier India's we've limited capacity you know we we talk about our civil
#
service officers and how hard they're working and all the stuff but for the most part in government
#
and by the way when we talk about government we're not talking about just the central government we
#
talk about state governments as well the public sector is very limited capacity so when you try
#
to implement things it takes so much more effort so much more time you know I was just recently
#
visited the Hoover Dam in Nevada in the U.S. Nevada slash Arizona the Hoover Dam was built
#
from 1931 to 1935 in you know just around the time of the depression in five years roughly there's
#
a flyover and Hoover Dam is huge there's a flyover in Hyderpora Srinagar which was built over seven
#
years the length of the flyover is maybe about a kilometer less than that it's not even a flyover
#
it's a kind of an overpass Hoover Dam five to six years and this flyover seven years a small little
#
thing this flyover was built in the 2000s now imagine where we are look at the difference now
#
you can't say that we didn't have resources because we clearly had resources because we built the
#
flyover but how is it possible that in a modern state it takes seven years to build a one kilometer
#
long flyover in Srinagar where somebody built a huge dam major irrigation project major power
#
generation project in the 1930s I think we need to recognize that we are still limited and in some
#
ways when you craft policies you have to keep that in mind if you don't keep that in mind you'll have
#
implementation disaster after implementation disaster and and that is why I think I'm at your
#
point of doing a few things really well I think that's important let's just do a few things but
#
let's let the government do them really well let there be a contract between we call it the social
#
contract in some ways between the citizen and the state and say you know what you want to do schools
#
you want to do education public education yeah okay but we want you to deliver along these parameters
#
these are the indicators of success these are the learning outcomes we want this is how we want our
#
children to grow if we could have that I mean I refer to the PSAC kind of system of testing across
#
countries as far as education attainment is concerned I think the last time it was done
#
under the UPA government then we abandoned it because our kids from I think Tamil Nadu
#
and Himachal Pradesh which was supposed to be the better states at that time participated and turned
#
out we performed worse than students in Kyrgyzstan and I think after that the government said no
#
we're not going to do this anymore as in stop participating now they're going to restart that
#
participation but what that tells me is that we are we if we're going to do education let's do it
#
well let's focus on that let's focus on fewer things let's not focus on everything and that's
#
the problem I think and by the way this is not Modi's creation I'm not can't blame Modi for this
#
this has been going on for one government after another but we now need a situation where we can
#
actually you know if if we're serious about the country's progress if you're serious about our
#
young people if you're serious about creating opportunities for them then you know we have to
#
take some tough decisions right so I want to move beyond economics and beyond your book right now
#
your book is really about Modi's being a great disappointment or a great betrayal as Raghav would
#
say in terms of economics but I want to go beyond that for a moment and ask you about Kashmir because
#
it seems pretty evident to me that a lot of things have gone wrong there in the last five
#
years and in fact were going wrong for from even much before that tell me a little bit about what's
#
happening well you know actually during the prime minister of our space time and then even
#
Dr. Manmohan Singh said I think there was a semblance of return to some level of normalcy
#
things had eased off you know there's greater participation in kind of you know elections and
#
all that just because people felt the thing it was safer and the rich of the militants had kind of
#
you know had subsided I mean or their power had subsided then in 2013-14
#
militancy we started hearing the militancy was beginning to pick up a little bit more
#
this was in the aftermath of the Abdul Guru hanging but it was still very limited the estimates
#
would be 100 or 200 people and all that stuff and that's it killings had come down civilian or
#
soldiers fewer people were dying but I think when the 2014 election came up and the verdict was
#
pretty lopsided you know the People's Democratic Party like Mufti Sayed at that time won heavily
#
in Kashmir the BJP won heavily in Jammu in fact the congress did not have a single MLA from the
#
Hindu regions of Jammu which was pretty astonishing it was a total kind of polarized verdict and of
#
course the government you know came up and the BJP and the PDP at that time from the government
#
that created I think a lot of disquiet in Kashmir and it was almost like oh now the BJP is going to
#
rule us the same BJP that the PDP had vilified and fought against during the assembly election
#
so I think the space for political discourse actually shrank so again there was polarization
#
in that sense that militancy started creeping up and if you remember in the last four or five years
#
a rhetoric on television and obviously political rhetoric has been pretty much about Kashmiris as
#
terrorists Kashmiris are terrorist lovers this thing that thing I think it was this vilification
#
campaign that kind of put Kashmiris in a corner so in some ways it was like I'm not surprised
#
that there's so much anger and resentment in Kashmir now there's more violence now and
#
because I think Kashmir suits BJP's politics greatly personally this is what I think you know
#
the congress party has always had this philosophy that in J&K the congress party should not try to
#
kind of bring in its central dominating kind of politics because regional parties are better able
#
to kind of deal with regional aspirations and it's a very I think it's a very deliberate kind
#
of thing as far as the BJP is concerned the BJP views Kashmir as a lever for national politics
#
there is the exact opposite of how the congress sees J&K so I'm not at all surprised by how
#
things have deteriorated in in Kashmir and they have you know more people I mean I think everybody
#
has kind of seen the numbers now more soldiers died in 2018 than in any year since 2008 so
#
more civilians dying there's no end to this conflict you know and it's been going on for
#
30 years I think the best hope was when Prime Minister Vajpayee was in control and then also
#
to some extent where the Musharraf been bouncing in a you know that formula but then everything
#
since then has kind of you know petered out things have gotten worse and so I don't know
#
I mean I think BJP has to be very careful in not making everything political national interests
#
cannot be you know you know in some ways I feel that BJP doesn't think of it places the party
#
political interest about the national interest as far as Kashmir is concerned and by the way for
#
that I think it may be that BJP does not view the national interest the same way the rest of us do
#
because maybe they think that the state of the nation right now this is not the nation they want
#
they want a different type of nation so you know if you don't think that this is the kind of nation
#
you wanted then you can place political interest about what we consider the national interest
#
because you're trying to get to a different nation state and this different national interest
#
so in that sense it makes sense from their political perspective it makes sense maybe
#
they want a different India and Kashmir suits that purpose and also in the popular rhetoric
#
these days party is equal to nation in their rhetoric so if you're anti-BJP you're automatically
#
considered anti-national so Salman now that I've got you on the show I also have to ask you
#
questions about the congress and the thing is for a democracy to be healthy you need a healthy
#
opposition and the decline of the congress is something that has you know I mean I used to
#
write against the congress all the time when they were in power and now of course I write against
#
the BJP all the time because they are in power but one of the things that has happened is in
#
2014 congress declined massively to 44 seats and the health of the party is something that
#
is called in concern and one of the things that dismay is many of us about it is that unlike the
#
BJP that doesn't really seem to be an active grassroots and a cadre from which leaders
#
spontaneously emerge what you instead have is a continuation of a series of dynasties like
#
I look across the party today even apart from Rahul Gandhi you have shindia and pilot and if
#
I may say so even yourself you know who yeah who are part of dynasties and you know Rahul Gandhi
#
himself used to talk about inner party democracy once upon a time but we don't see that and even
#
if it was there where are the cardinals where are the grassroots okay so these are actually
#
two different questions because first let's talk about the dynasty part and you're right my father
#
like I said earlier has been a politician for a long time and to be totally transparent of course
#
when I joined politics you know I got immediate recognition because of my father right because
#
they knew who he was now in politics you know you really have to prove yourself and ultimately
#
people will you may make it to a certain point and say okay you know I'm going to compete for
#
this particular seat or whatever but ultimately it's the people who decide whether you're the
#
right person for them or not so I think in that sense this uh this dynasty part is not specific
#
to congress I mean of course you see similar things in other political parties as well
#
and in other countries as well what matters is whether or not whoever is in politics at least
#
to my mind are they delivering for the people if they're not they'll be you know you can't really
#
uh you can't keep them uh as in you know people it is up to the people ultimately to whether or
#
not they keep them or not of course and by the way this isn't going to go away just because we
#
may feel a certain way about it because uh it's uh you know uh this has been happening historically
#
it's going to continue happening in India and elsewhere so that's the one part about dynasty
#
yes uh do we have other leaders who are coming in who are not related to uh politicians of course
#
I mean I'm sure that you know we tend to focus on dynasties because they're easy to kind of
#
comprehend they're easy to calculate but there's so many people that I know of in our party in
#
other parties have nothing to do with politics they're first-time politicians and they're
#
doing extremely well so on the dynasty part frankly I don't really see it as something that
#
is inherently bad unless you feel that dynasties can be sustained without people's support
#
ultimately people will have to weigh in in a democracy and when they do sometimes you win
#
sometimes you lose depends on how well you've done I lost an election myself my first election
#
I lost myself despite the fact that you know I felt that I was a good candidate I'd
#
gone to the world bank I had a lot of policy experience uh had no scandals per se I was
#
well-meaning but you know people saw it different people felt that different candidate was better
#
for them because maybe he came from the part of the world or whatever so but democracy has that
#
equalizing effect I think as far as the cadres and where are the cadres what's happening why isn't
#
the congress you know people say the rss is everywhere where is the congress party you know
#
there is this thing about to my mind about liberal politics everywhere that it seems that
#
when it comes to being on the ground they seem to be less kind of active than say
#
uh people who are on the far right I don't know why that is the case I mean I hear about similar
#
complaints in the US in Europe that is you know that the carder-based political parties
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which are typically left of center they don't seem to be as active as the far right now it has been
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my experience that even if you don't see the kind of same visible rss ground game I've seen in my
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own experience congress supporters are in the unlikeliest of places in Kashmir I can't tell you
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there are these I bet so many people who support congress and for no I mean I and it kind of really
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puzzled me I was like you guys never you know pdp and nc always win here how are you still there
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still with the congress very different reasons but they're still there so uh I think in this
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I think in this particular election we're going to see a different kind of outcome I think
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and that outcome is not possible if you don't have feet on the ground
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but we need to pay a lot more attention to this I think now politics is changing the threat from
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the far right is far too significant it cannot be kind of uh it cannot be disregarded I think time
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has come for uh political parties like the congress to pay a lot more attention to organization
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uh and and mobilizing resources uh but you know we are we are in a difficult situation right now
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because we have limited resources and we are fighting this election and it's not that easy but
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but let's see what the outcome is uh and you know if I may speculate I mean on the one hand it's um
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if I may say so the congress in recent years has seemed to be a party which just wants to come to
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power doesn't really believe in anything what are really the core beliefs if I may take a skeptic's
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view but if I uh you know on the other hand to be a two-handed economist if I uh you know one reason
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if I may speculate why liberal parties have uh less of an impact of the grassroots and far right
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parties do is that because hate is a bigger motivating factor than hope is you know hope can
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become very diffused and there is a free rider effect and all of those things whereas you know
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the more you whip up hate the the better the turnout you're going to get which is which is
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you know really worrying uh you know I I have another question you guys just really released a
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manifesto and and my other question sort of goes back to the BJP manifesto of 2014 and I'll quote
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from your book uh quote the manifesto accused the UPA of not maintaining that growth and leaving
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the next government with sub five percent growth the BJP charged that the UPA pushed the country
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backwards by 20 years and that millions of men and women were jobless arguing that the country
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had lost hope the BJP cast itself as a party that would act decisively to address the country's
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challenges on a priority basis stop quote now what strikes me is that one obviously that their
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manifesto uh had a lot of things in it which were good as um you yourself said but the other thing
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is that this could this exact sentence could be used for today it was just changing the UPA and
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the BJP just switching them where you have the congress talking about how the BJP has done such
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a miserable job over the last few years which is absolutely true and equally promising drastic
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action now my question is why should anyone take manifesto seriously because as we've seen the BJP
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did not follow up on their manifesto of 2014 and you know if I can ask a specific question that
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struck me for from your manifesto like uh there's lots in your manifesto to like for example one of
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the promises you guys make is that cities will be empowered and uh you know empowered mayors will
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be elected and therefore governance will be better but the question that struck me when I saw this
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was that wait a minute this is a state subject this is you know the national government has nothing
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to do with this at all the congress is already in a power in a number of states and they could do
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this now if they wanted to so what is it in this manifesto for is it just posturing well I think
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it's not uh uh posturing per se I think it is in some ways uh trying to draw a philosophical line
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uh because decentralization like the one you talked about in terms of urban governance
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reforms first you know urban governance reforms are needed necessary without that you can't really
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do much at least you have to have a statement which says no look this is important and it is
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important especially with uh if india continues to urbanize and by the way I don't really believe
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the figure that india is 70 percent or 69 percent rural right now I think a lot of what has
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happened is that the landscape has transformed uh cities and villages are uh getting fused together
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through other settlements uh so so I think india may be a bit more urbanized than we we think it
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is and for that we need new governance systems uh we do need decentralization and in some ways
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this is this is part of the congress party's core philosophy going back to the 70s and 80s
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going back to the 73rd and 74th amendment going back to what prime minister Rajiv Gandhi had
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wanted to do through panchayat raj and all that so I think the aspiration remains I think
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philosophical statement remains I think what we have to do a far better job of is to actually
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implement the thing right uh to persuade governments at the state levels uh to say look we have to do
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this it is you know in some ways you can't really dictate to state governments these days obviously
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I mean unless you're a bjp and you control more than half the country and maybe you can
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and that would have made it easier but you know in some ways you have to persuade governments and
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you had to kind of create models in other states and say look I mean this is working really well
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here people are benefiting here other states should follow suit but it is not you know I do
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think that manifestos are serious documents if you look at the bjp's manifesto also they try to
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follow up on a lot of different things but I think what uh you know like electrification and this
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thing and that thing but I think what bjp missed out on was the broader kind of policy reforms
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so in fact if you look at all the promises there's so many that they actually did try to
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follow up on whether there was there was uh the right thing or not that's different but they try
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to follow up on a lot of things the congress party too will you know this is one way to hold
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uh political parties accountable but I do think that this particular congress manifesto has some
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very important uh statements and that have to do with the role of the state to my mind I have not
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come across any congress manifesto which actually says that the private sector will lead through
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investment and the public sector will focus on public goods or you know for the most part I mean
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that's a pretty that's a pretty uh interesting statement to make right I mean this is what people
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like me like I'm sure I mean you also want uh something similar with the private sector is
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uh at least in a statement unleashed and and then the public sector is uh redefined for public goods
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so I think very important very important similar also our commitment to individual freedoms uh in
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this manifesto I think that is very important and I think part of it may be uh borne out of our
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experience with the current government and how uh this government has actually uh threatened a lot
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of our personal freedoms so uh maybe the next government that we hopefully uh have something
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to do with will kind of implement an agenda where we can strengthen these freedoms so that whichever
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government comes in the future at least will face the pressure from citizenry as well as institutions
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alike so uh I know there's a lot of cynicism I know is not misplaced but at the same time you know
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we have to have some hope yeah I mean I've been writing from say the early 2000s about our free
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speech laws and not just the sedition law which you guys have said you will abolish but also 295a
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153a uh things you haven't mentioned and you know the congress after all was the party that banned
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the satanic verses which remains banned but I completely buy your point that it's important
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to change the rhetoric and you know that the commitment that you guys have explicitly made
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to individual rights and uh you know the primacy of the private sector is great let's see how much
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of that um really happens I'll kind of and and uh regarding what you said about urban development
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obviously I agree with you I had an episode a few weeks back which I'll link from the episode page
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with Ruben Abraham and Pritika Hingurani of the IDFC institute on how India is far more urban than
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we think and what we should do to smooth that process um you know I've taken a lot of your time
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sort of a final question uh to end with uh which is uh again I ask you to answer this not wearing
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your hat as a congress spokesperson but as wearing your hat as an Indian citizen and in fact much of
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the book is written with that hat frankly as as I was surprised by but just wearing the hat of an
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Indian citizen if you look forward to say the next five years what gives you hope and what gives you
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the spare well what gives me hope is uh uh that uh frankly we reached a bit of a crisis point as
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far as uh the economy is concerned I think uh our the inequality the rising inequality and uh the
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kind of lack of good decent job creation along with this demographic kind of imperative I think
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is creating a situation where we we have no choice but to act so remember how sometimes we act because
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there's a crisis I think the crisis point is uh is reached uh and I think we have to do something
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I mean no matter what government comes I think we're to do something drastic otherwise we're in
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trouble I think India's in trouble otherwise so I think I'm hoping the hope is that policymakers
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understand and realize that there is a serious situation in India especially on the employment
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front and by the way that is direct linkages to inequality and and that something has to be done
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and so that gives me hope of course what causes me concern is that policymakers may not get it
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and uh like has happened in this uh in this government's term that they may actually uh end up uh doing
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more harm than good in fact one of the principles I actually talked about uh four uh principles of
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policy making and one of them is uh you know do no harm I never thought I was gonna say write
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something like that do no harm as a principle of policy making uh but I think uh you know after
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the experience of this government I'm you know I think it's sensible to include something like
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that so yeah so hope and and uh caution are both linked to uh this moment in our uh history and
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there are clear dangers ahead there's a crisis uh in my view there's a crisis in the country
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and it's only going to get worse by the way it's not going to improve if we don't do something
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and that gives me hope that we may end up doing something because when it when it's this crisis
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time when it is crunch time some of us step forward and do something about it and that's
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what I hope from the next government Salman thank you so much for coming on the scene in
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the unseen I learned a lot reading your book and talking to you thank you so much I mean thank you
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so much for having me if you enjoyed listening to this show hop on over to your nearest bookstore
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online or otherwise and pick up a copy of the great disappointment by Salman Sose you can follow
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Salman on twitter at Salman Sose S-A-L-M-A-N-S-O-Z one word you can follow me at Amit Verma A-M-I-T-V-A-R-M-A
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the scene in the unseen is supported by the Takshashila institution and independent center
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for research and education and public policy the Takshashila institution offers 12 week courses
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in public policy technology policy and strategic studies and for both full-time students and
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working professionals admissions for the May 2019 batch are now open visit takshashila.org.in
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for more details you can browse all our past episodes at scene unseen.in and thinkpragati.com
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