India will benefit from contestation between different models of growth

Narendra Modi's public relations machinery has worked hard to market Gujarat's success story across the country. Its job has become easier as the overall India growth story has lost its sheen, making more seductive the idea of a forceful leader who can supply 24X7 power. This representation hasn't gone unchallenged, with Nitish Kumar posing serious questions about the inclusiveness of the Gujarat model of development. Now the Planning Commission has also said that the state's social sector performance does not match its estimable economic performance.
Given that Bihar was a basket case when Nitish took over, the turnaround he has brought about in the state's economy is creditable. His administration has focussed on restoring law and order, and on pulling up Bihar from the bottom of social indicators. Literacy has leapfrogged. In contrast, the Plan panel has drawn attention to Gujarat's failures on the education front: the state's gross enrolment ratio in higher secondary schools is lower than the national average and also worse in the case of deprived sections. Modi wears his pro-industry credentials like a badge of honour - wooing Ratan Tata and Osamu Suzuki were coups d'etat. With Bihar's growth story having been scripted by public investments instead, Nitish likes to decry Modi as driven by corporate interests.

But the twain shall have to meet. The Gujarat model needs to buff up its social development credentials. As for the Bihar model, when the Keynesian river runs dry, it will no longer be able to prosper without the kind of private initiatives that have delivered both agricultural and manufacturing growth to Gujarat. While these two models grab the most attention, many others are calling for notice. Naveen Patnaik's Odisha has averaged 8% growth for a decade by subduing the licence-permit raj that had withered his state's mineral wealth. Raman Singh's Chhattisgarh, albeit blemished by Maoism, has delivered a huge expansion in steel, aluminum and power production. Shivraj Singh Chouhan's Madhya Pradesh has made a fetish of rural infrastructure and seen record-high agricultural production.

All these models will give the UPA's welfarist paradigm a good run for its money at the hustings next year. Moving the conversation on from Mandir and Mandal, most of them are producing higher growth than the national average. To pull in votes, religion and caste now need to slug it out with two new kids on the block: growth and good governance.

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