India at 70 in a PK mode
Recently, Rahul Gandhi of INC had an interaction on India at 70 discussing a number of issues at LKYSPP. An informed polity should be discussing the issues raised, but the larger discourse has been limited to a question by one PK (not the vintage PK, those interested for a Sunday tête-à-tête may have a peek here). While I should not be spending my Sunday in a PK mode, but got a bit carried away. Hence, if you find something incoherent, then you know whom to blame. In the same vein, and in all fairness, the credit to any coherence will have nothing to do with being reborn (Asian or otherwise).
An analysis of comparing India's growth with that of the world has already been done by Maitreesh Ghatak (of LSE) and Amitabh Dubey. I thought of exploring the numbers further either because I had nothing else to do or because I wanted to avoid doing something else. True, I wanted to play around with the numbers to give some benefit of doubt to PK. However, I unequivocally state that this has no conflict of interest because of being stuck in a PK mode on a Sunday.
Benefit of Doubt
Having done some work on decomposing poverty change by bringing in population or because of the call for MANUSH in measuring HDI (see its IvU version), I had a feeling that the reference to growth or was it to PK (even if not of the vintage type) was perhaps in per capita terms. This is my first PK benefit of doubt.
I resort to the data provided by the World Bank through World Development Indicators. I make use of GDP per capita in constant 2010 US$ terms with data available from 1960 to 2016 providing us with simple annual average growth rates. From the 56 years of GDP per capita growth rates, India has been having a growth greater than that of the World in 40 years and it has been doing so continuously since 2001.
While it is true that Rahul Gandhi's family has not been in the helm of powers (as Prime Minister of India) since 2001, but then there are phases when Inida has fared well when their family was in the helm of affairs than when others were at the helm of affairs. For instance, in Table 1 as per column Pr1 (proportion of years when per capita growth rate of GDP for India was greater than that for World) Jawaharlal Nehru (JN) and Indira Gandhi's first term (IG1) fare better than that of Lal Bahadur Shastri (LBS+) and this seems to hold even for the annual average per capita GDP growth rate for their respective periods (Gr1). This takes me to my second PK benefit of doubt.
I have a queasy feeling that the comparison was not about the forefathers of Rahul Gandhi and those of others because that sounds inappropriate even in a PK mode. In fact, the other day, I overheard some people in a PK mode discussing among themselves that, at times, being in a PK mode may lead to some nuisance, but under no circumstances would they hit below the belt. And, pitting someone's forefathers with some others' forefathers is so below the belt. In any case, it does not prove any point to discuss the growth performance under Lal Bahadur Shastri when the country had to face a war and drought in that period and that too by pitting one Congress Prime Minister by another. One is of the opinion that the intention was perhaps to compare growth regimes between Congress and Non-Congress Prime Ministers.
One observes from Table 1 that there have been some Congress regimes that have been doing relatively better than Non-Congress regimes. Note that Indira Gandhi's second term and also the term of Rajiv Gandhi fared better than the terms of MD+ (Morarji Desai and Charan Singh), VP+ (Vishwanath Pratap Singh and Chandra Shekhar) and IKG+ (Atal Bihari Vajpayee's first term, HD Deve Gowda, and Inder Kumar Gujral). The term of PV Narasimha Rao and also of Manmohan Singh fared better than that of Atal Bihari Vajpayee's second term. One also observes that the growth under the Prime Ministership of Narendra Modi in its initial years (for which we have data) has also done relatively better than the earlier regimes. While this is important, it is not the point of discussion in a PK mode. This is my third PK benefit of doubt - the question on comparative growth in India at 70 was not about scoring a political brownie point. At times, self goals can happen in a PK mode, but that is another matter.
While it is true that Rahul Gandhi's family has not been in the helm of powers (as Prime Minister of India) since 2001, but then there are phases when Inida has fared well when their family was in the helm of affairs than when others were at the helm of affairs. For instance, in Table 1 as per column Pr1 (proportion of years when per capita growth rate of GDP for India was greater than that for World) Jawaharlal Nehru (JN) and Indira Gandhi's first term (IG1) fare better than that of Lal Bahadur Shastri (LBS+) and this seems to hold even for the annual average per capita GDP growth rate for their respective periods (Gr1). This takes me to my second PK benefit of doubt.
I have a queasy feeling that the comparison was not about the forefathers of Rahul Gandhi and those of others because that sounds inappropriate even in a PK mode. In fact, the other day, I overheard some people in a PK mode discussing among themselves that, at times, being in a PK mode may lead to some nuisance, but under no circumstances would they hit below the belt. And, pitting someone's forefathers with some others' forefathers is so below the belt. In any case, it does not prove any point to discuss the growth performance under Lal Bahadur Shastri when the country had to face a war and drought in that period and that too by pitting one Congress Prime Minister by another. One is of the opinion that the intention was perhaps to compare growth regimes between Congress and Non-Congress Prime Ministers.
Table 1
India's Growth
Rate in comparison to that of the World under different Prime
Ministers: 1961-2016
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PMs
|
Pr_In>Wo
|
Gr_In
|
Gr_Wo
|
Gr_LnM
|
JN
|
41.2
|
2.5
|
3.4
|
2.1
|
LBS+
|
35.9
|
-1.0
|
3.8
|
3.8
|
IG1
|
37.9
|
1.4
|
2.6
|
3.7
|
MD+
|
64.4
|
-0.1
|
2.2
|
1.8
|
IG2
|
82.6
|
3.1
|
0.4
|
0.7
|
RG
|
77.0
|
3.6
|
2.1
|
1.8
|
VP+
|
69.7
|
2.1
|
0.8
|
-0.1
|
PV
|
89.2
|
3.6
|
0.8
|
0.7
|
IKG+
|
45.6
|
3.5
|
2.0
|
2.9
|
ABV
|
83.8
|
4.2
|
1.6
|
2.8
|
MS
|
100.0
|
6.2
|
1.6
|
4.8
|
NM
|
100.0
|
6.3
|
1.5
|
2.7
|
Notes: PMs denotes Prime Ministers, Pr_In>Wo denotes proportion of period India's per capita GDP is greater than that for World. Gr_In, Gr_Wo and Gr_LnM denote the annual
average growth rate of per capita GDP for India, World, and low
and middle income countries, respectively, for the period that the PMs
have been in office. JN refers to Jawaharlal Nehru from 01/01/61 to 27/05/64
(earlier years since 15/08/47 could not be included for data limitation).
LBS+ refers to Lal Bahadur Shastri and two tenures of Gulzarilal Nanda
as acting PM for 13 days each (the combined period is from 27/05/64 to
24/01/66). IG1 refers to Indira Gandhi's first term from 24/01/66 to
24/03/77. MD+ refers to Morarji Desai and Charan Singh (combined period is
from 24/03/77 to 14/01/80). IG2 refers to Indira Gandhi's second term from 14/01/30
to 31/10/84. RG refers to Rajiv Gandhi's term from 31/10/84 to 02/12/89. VP+
refers to the terms of Vishwanath Pratap Singh and Chandra Shekhar (combined
period is from 02/12/89 to 21/06/91). PV refers to PV Narasimha Rao's term
from 21/06/91 to 16/05/96. IKG+ refers to the terms of Atal Bihari
Vajpayee (first term of 16 days), HD Deve Gowda (324 days) and IK Gujral (332
days) and the combined period is from 16/05/96 to 19/03/98. ABV refers to
Atal Bihari Vajpayee's second term from 19/03/98 to 22/05/04. MS refers to
Manmohan Singh's term (from 22/05/04 to 26/05/14). NM refers to Narendra
Modi's term from 26/05/14 to 31/12/16, that is, the period for which information
is available.
Source: Calculated by author based on data from World
Development Indicators, World Bank and Former Primer
Ministers, Prime Ministor's Office, Government of India.
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One observes from Table 1 that there have been some Congress regimes that have been doing relatively better than Non-Congress regimes. Note that Indira Gandhi's second term and also the term of Rajiv Gandhi fared better than the terms of MD+ (Morarji Desai and Charan Singh), VP+ (Vishwanath Pratap Singh and Chandra Shekhar) and IKG+ (Atal Bihari Vajpayee's first term, HD Deve Gowda, and Inder Kumar Gujral). The term of PV Narasimha Rao and also of Manmohan Singh fared better than that of Atal Bihari Vajpayee's second term. One also observes that the growth under the Prime Ministership of Narendra Modi in its initial years (for which we have data) has also done relatively better than the earlier regimes. While this is important, it is not the point of discussion in a PK mode. This is my third PK benefit of doubt - the question on comparative growth in India at 70 was not about scoring a political brownie point. At times, self goals can happen in a PK mode, but that is another matter.
Comparing India's growth with the World that would have a greater base may be advantageous for India to show a relatively higher growth rate. Hence, I concede my final PK benefit of doubt and propose comparing with growth rates for low and middle income countries also. It is observed from Table 1 that the the annual average per capita growth rate of GDP for India (Gr1) when compared with that of the World (Gr2) and low and middle income countries (Gr3) under different regimes shows that India has fared better since 1980s, that is from Indira Gandhi's second term and thereafter. Another moot point that emerges is that prior to the 1980s India's growth rate was always relatively lower than that of the World, but fared better than the low and middle income countries under Jawaharlal Nehru. Keeping that aside, a limited understanding of the data analysed indicates that a momentum or break from the past was initiated in the 1980s, the momentum continued in the 1990s (PV Narasimha Rao's liberalisation initiatives followed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee's India shining), and it gained further speed in the last fifteen years (Manmohan Singh in two Avataar's of United Progressive Alliance, and Narendra Modi's juggernaut). As the growth trajectory continues it will raise other concerns, particularly on the distributional front like the other juggernaut with farmers on their way from Nashik to Mumbai.
Firki remarks
The firki discussion above is from a PK mode. Those interested in a more serious and detailed discussion on episodes of growth along with a discussion of spaces earmarked for deals, rent and political should look up Sabyasachi Kar and Kunal Sen's The Political Economy of India's Growth Episodes (for a quick initiation to the book see this review).
Click on for an earlier note on PK and firki.
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