Fwd: What's the Gujarat Model and who's seen it? - By Aakar Patel -& Manoj Padhi

[Manoj Padhi]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Manoj Padhi <manoj...@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Apr 12, 2014 at 2:10 PM
Subject: Re: What's the Gujarat Model and who's seen it? - By Aakar Patel - Live Mint and The Wall Street Journal

Aakar Patel's narrow or biased vision didn't throw any light on - whether there were 24 hour/day electricity before Modi took over as CM. Whether Modi hired an able person to trigger Electricity reforms ? In Other states (e.g. Odisha, UP) - some CMs started Electricity reform - why that didn't work ? What about Water, Industry ? Why TATAs quit West Bengal - a Muslim appeasing state where doing Business was a crime amid worst visionary CM Mamta ? YES - Modi provided soft loan to Tatas - but do you see that after Nano, another plant of Suzuki is coming in Gujarat.

How about crime statistics - which increases exponentially because of unemployment ?

The Author should watch Rajnikant's movi Shivaji in Hindi - it is available on youtube . A Gujarat model is what Rajnikant wanted but he got 'rest of India' model.

UPA's 10 years of Socialism and job less growth put the country around 50 years behind; we missed many opportunities - such as an Indian  internet search engine, an Indian giant  B2B/B2C e-commerce like Amazon, e-bay, Big data  centers, Indian social networking - China got all these. With China, we have a trade deficit of $60+ billion dollars and all our PM does to reduce trade deficit is begging China to invest in infrastructure projects which is around < $500 million. This is not Gujarat Model.

Modi's Solar Policy has been copied by UPA as National Renewable Energy Policy.

Modi boosted tourism by offering tax breaks to good films with social message  and soliciting good will of Amitabh Bachchan. Who was preventing Mulayam to do that when Mr. Bachchan was Amar Singh's friend & Jaya Bachachan is still their MP ? ideas and Vision do matter.

If Muslims and anti-Modi Activists don't want to see these mode - that is fine. If you want to see, look at Bihar, Odisha, West Bengal & UP model for UPA like Socialism based, job less growth policies where labor rates gone up because of Rs.2/-/kg subsidized rice. The 90 day rural employment scheme of UPA may have been generated jobs - but did they contribute to infrastructure development, that could have contributed to Investments. 

Take a look at internet / wifi status - I can't work from my home town because of unreliable power & lack of wifi . In Delhi, my brother gave me a BSNL wifi USB drive, which worked poorly near Gangaram Hospital but didn't work near Noida border. I also compared the Wifi speed offered by Bharati with that of USA. Hell & heaven difference. Why can't Indians deserve Fiber Optical based Internet Backbone by the Tier-1 service providers, which are needed for Video Streaming and if that happens, many new businesses will come up. Why this was not envisioned by MMS Government ?

Why can't the FM channels do political talk shows ? Chidambaram wrote Internet law, that took away our freedom of expression. Compare that with US law. This is definitely not Gujarat model.

Why Nokia has been shifting its cell phone assembly to Vietnam ? In its India plant, it is offering Voluntary retirement to workers and now doing 2 shift production. This plant is not at Gujarat.

How the FDI in retail will help India when 90% of their items will be sourced from China ? What will be the new trade deficit with China after FDI in retail - $200 billion ? Isn't it stupid to allow FDI in retain without first establishing a solid manufacturing base like China ? What Manmohan Singh did in last 10 years to improve manufacturing in India; he should have at least asked Chinese companies to set up manufacturing bases in India.

How about Defense ? army needed 18000 crores to keep a 40 day reserve of ammunition. That amount was not given to them and when Chinese incursion took place, MMS was panic and surrendered to their demand.

I have seen many analysis. I am sorry to say that this article is the most stupid article I have ever read. There is no Gujarati Model - that is nothing but preference or choice of entrepreneurship of a specific community. In my home town, there is another community called "Kumuti" - they never prefer jobs - so are Marwadis and Sindhis. But they were even doing business before Modi ? How was Gujarat then ?

Manoj Padhi

hindtoday.com

On Sat, Apr 12, 2014 at 9:21 AM, Ghulam Muhammed <ghulamm...@gmail.com> wrote:

http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/dLPCSc8BG725fx5dEB07uK/Whats-the-Gujarat-Model-and-whos-seen-it.html

What’s the Gujarat Model and who’s seen it?

Debunking an abiding 21st century myth of the Gujarat Model

Aakar Patel

There is a Gujarati, not a Gujarat, Model of economic growth. Photo: Rajan Chaughule/Bloomberg

One abiding 21st century myth is the Gujarat Model. What is this chimera and who has seen it? It is supposed to be the thing which has delivered Gujarat high growth and efficient, corruption-free government. But what does this new and improved model look and smell like?

The boring fact is that the laws governing Gujarat are no different from those governing other Indian states. So if it is a model, it is a strange sort into which one is supposed to read differences where none exist. If one probes further, one is told the model lies in unmeasurables: Good governance! Decisiveness!

All arrant nonsense.

Even so, the Gujarat Model has been bandied about for so long and so loudly that it has become real. Tens of millions of people are about to vote for it, on the assumption or hope that it is coming soon to their state.

The truth, sorry to disappoint, is that there is no Gujarat Model. There is a Gujarati Model, and there has always been.

Where on earth do Gujaratis need Narendra Modi’s Model to make them successful?

Do the Patels of America, who run their empire of motels, need Modi’s genius? Do the Memons of South Africa? The Gujaratis of East Africa, who dominate the economies of Kenya and Tanzania? The Palanpuri Jains who compete with Hasidic Jews in controlling the diamond bourse of Israel and have made Brussels and Antwerp Gujarati outposts, do they need the Gujarat Model?

What about Azim Premji in Bangalore? Does he need Modi? Did the Tatas? Mumbai’s stock market is preponderantly Gujarati, and has been since the 19th century. The best shops in the spice markets of Kochi have boards saying “GUJARATI OWNER”, because that is a byword for competence, and a reputation acquired over centuries, not since 2001.

Dhirubhai Ambani did not need Modi to make his fortune. The only Gujarati I can think of who has made his billions in the reign of Modi is Gautam Adani, in whose plane Modi is cutting across the country delivering sermons.

So forget the Gujarat Model. So far as the Gujarati Model goes, it cannot be replicated in West Bengal, Odisha or Bihar. Not unless enormous numbers of Gujaratis are produced and sent forth to colonise these parts, armed with their business chops, their vegetarianism and their hypocritical abstinence from alcohol (a most unappealing thought) to acculturate the natives.

And it is embarrassing for many Gujaratis—I am one—to be told that all of the success of their great state is attendant on the sublime genius of one man. Now I have always liked the rogue who grabs what he can. Some cultures are always in need of saving. Modi can hardly be faulted for his behaviour in claiming to be a self-referential and angry prophet of the Hebrew kind. I have a problem with the gullibility of those who fall for this, and who thrust their insistence upon others.

When the economy was opened up by the change in laws starting in 1991, Gujarat’s economy picked up. It would have done so no matter which government had written these laws opening up the world to Gujarati businessmen.

It would have done so no matter who was running the state in Gujarat. And mind you, it isn’t as if Gujarat is clubbing the world into submission with its economic growth. It cannot even grow at 10% on a small base.

There are problems Gujaratis have that are inherent to the Gujarati Model. We have no English and therefore no stake in the new services businesses that have created India’s new urban middle class (something for Modi’s Internet enthusiasts to think about). Even the brilliance of the great man could bring Gujarat no share in this. Gujaratis have always been, and even today are, focused on a few industries. In these we do not innovate and our contribution to the science and technology aspects of even these industries is not much. Efficient raisers and managers of capital, yes. World-beaters in all industry, no.

We should not fault Modi for this, just as it is wrong to credit him for everything. Gujaratis are as disinterested in, and as poor at, science and invention as other Indians.

The romance with Modi as saviour is based on ignorance of how Gujarat works. It is not a state whose economy Modi has invented since 2001. It is not a replicable model and it will not be replicated no matter what Modi’s table-thumpers say.

The unromantic reality is that no one man (even if I accept the assertion of Modi’s devotees that the Gujarati male is a manifestly superior species) is going to come bearing deliverance for your state.

You’re going to have to build your model yourself, as Gujaratis have theirs. Good luck with that.

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Manoj Padhi

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Manoj Padhi