Dr. Asangba Tzüdir Has this Avatar Ushered the Path of Transforming India or a Suspect Governance? On August 15, 2014, from the ramparts of the Red Fort, the PM of India Narendra Modi proclaimed, “we will replace the Planning Commission with a new institution having a new design and structure, a new body, a new soul, a new thinking, a new direction, a new faith towards forging a new direction...” On January 1, 2015, the six-decade old Planning Commission of India was replaced by Modi’s vision for transforming India – NITI AAYOG (National Institution for Transforming India), a reality that resulted from Modi’s fiery election campaign. The Planning Commission was seen as the culprit for hampering India’s potential. The general air of feeling was that the old Planning had lived beyond which the purpose is not guaranteed. That, even after 12 five-year plans one-fourth of India’s population still lives below Poverty line. Headed by the Prime Minister, NITI AAYOG was created through a government resolution having no constitutional or statutory stature and is structured by a governing Council including Chief Ministers of all states and the lieutenant-governors of the union territories. NITI AAYOG is supposed to act like an advisory body in the evolution of a nationwide development and source out ideas in order to create a long term junction between Centre and States by giving more autonomy to the states in order to plan and utilise the resources giving a federal outlook. With the objective of transforming India, a lot of things have happened especially on the level of governance – the Make in India initiative; Swachh Bharat; Startup India; Skill India; Gram Jyoti Yojana; Pradhan Mantri Yojanas; Smart Cities project; Digital India; Aadhaar Card; the fight against black money through demonitisation. etc. NITI Aayog has completed two years on January 1, 2017. Two years may seem too short a time to see the transformative effect as envisaged through NITI Aayog. Nonetheless, it is not short either to assess the path to progress. As of now, ideas abound in many forms but some critics have rightly pointed out that it is easy to mistake ‘visibility’ for ‘presence.’ The presence has been largely felt but a lot is desired for the ‘presence’ to be ‘visibily’ felt. What exactly was the National Agenda project of NITI Aayog? How far has his economic model of sustainable and equitable development and for the ‘welfare of all’ taken India forward? The reality is that, India has witnessed heightened forms of violence; religious insensitivities – of cows and temples; the politics of Hindi language. These are issues that hamper growth and development. India cannot proclaim or celebrate diversity when the larger project seems to be tilting towards ‘hinduising’ India. On the issues of good governance, there are certain concerns that require deliberation because underlying the ‘good governance’ is a form of ‘suspect governance.’ The effect of demonetisation on the economy is largely felt leaving aside the failed objective of curbing black money. Cashless economy may sound like a cover up but it’s not a good sounding term especially when there is cash crunch. The prolonged protests by farmers of Tamil Nadu with snakes and rats in their mouths, not happy with the compensation amount of Rs 3000 (www.the newsminute.com/March 29, 2017) also suggests a crisis of demonetisation and not just a climatic tragedy. Coming to the point, as reported in The Times of India, Jan’ 10, 2017, the Governor of RBI disclosed that the RBI and the government began talks on demonetisation in January 2016. Surprisingly, the RBI Governor commented to the standing committee on finance that consultations were held but the “meeting minutes were not maintained to ensure that secrecy was not compromised.” The larger question is whether the report of the Parliamentary Committee on demonetisation will be brought to ‘light.’ Only this will bring out a clearer picture of demonetisation. Though, the same month after demonetisation, the former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh termed it as an “Organised loot and legalised plunder... and the making of a mammoth tragedy,” and added that he did not disagree with the objectives of the government but that a “monumental mismanagement had taken place.” (The Hindu, November 24, 2016). Also, there are many contentious issues relating to Aadhaar Card, and primarily, the way Aadhaar Card was introduced as a Money Bill puts Aadhaar as a ‘suspect card’ and to quote Prof. R. Ramakumar wherein he says, “the Government’s passage of the Aadhaar Bill in complete disregard of even basic parliamentary procedures and in subversion of an ongoing judicial process puts at risk a number of constitutional rights and liberties of citizens.” In NITI Aayog, the absence of a constitutional and statutory status makes it more conspicuous not to mention the handicap it suffers from possessing the resource allocation leverage unlike Planning Commission. Adding to this, the various flagship programmes which actually comes from the PMO seems to come from the PM himself. There is also much documentation on the NITI Aayog website on many aspects of governance. But what is missing is transformation in praxis. Nonetheless, more than two years have passed but it seems to be still suffering from ‘definitional’ problems because as envisaged, NITI Aayog was supposed to enable a platform that would cultivate “creative thinking, public-private partnership, optimum utilization of resources, and utilisation of youth power of the nation,” and most importantly, promote the aspirations of states and empower the federal structure. No doubt, NITI Aayog has made its presence felt, yet, within the goal of transforming India, the approach is not only ambitious but there seems to be more of chaos than real progress and transformation in a country that tries to dismantle ‘unity in diversity.’
(Dr. Asangba Tzüdir writes a weekly guest editorial for The Morung Express. Comments can be mailed to asangtz@gmail.com)
