I am Jasoos Narayanoski Kieślowski. Over the last five years I have been watching from miles away a rare talent bloom in India.
First I was dismissive, then skeptical, but now I am a converted bhakt.
If there is one person I would pick to make a film to save my life , it would be Narendra Damodardas Modi. The best part is while his direction might look like Bollywood masala, if you keep watching again and again, the production will grow on you, and you get to see the deeper art, economics and politics of it all.
Now more than art and politics, I am more impressed by his innovative economics.
He will scrap 500 and 1000 rupee notes in the same way he finishes a piece of dhokla. He will kill jobs surveys, he will change growth calculation parameters -- like Kudiyan paramu finishes a double large in a single gulp.
There is a method in this madness.
Even I, despite all my powers of deduction and seduction, would have missed the big picture. After weeks of drinking whiskeys -- didn’t I tell you I have stopped drinking rum for health reasons -- and smoking joints, everything became clear, crystal clear.
Now I will clear your doubts one by one.
Let us take jobs for instance. We all agree maximum jobs are in the informal sector. The NSSO survey doesn’t cover it as well as it should. Yesterday at the maidan I saw a harmless game of cricket between Mulla XI and Sanghi XI - these days that is how they name their teams. And they were playing for money. It was a clear economic activity at the end of which one side would get richer by 1000 rupees, the other poorer by 1000 rupees. A proper business transaction with a profit and loss balance sheet which has not been recorded by any official mechanism.
Or for that matter the three people who were playing cards for money. Do you think any man ow woman with self-respect man would admit he earns his living playing teen patti. Does NSSO survey capture all this? Nah.
And why this obsession with money. Every bit of action and inaction has an economic value. A man sleeping in the park gets mental piece which definitely is worth the 1000 or 2000 rupees he would have otherwise earned doing some other work. By that logic sleeping on the park bench qualifies to be a job. And it definitely needs to reflect on GDP numbers, job surveys and happiness index.
You may laugh at Modi but at your own risk. His theory of climate change was derided when he proposed it to the international community, but a recent study has proved what he said beyond any doubt. The pathbreaking research has found climate change doesn’t affect human beings as they just adapt to the changes. For instance if the winter gets longer they just buy a few more sweaters or if the summers get hotter, they buy a few more air-conditioners. Homo sapiens may later grow fur or shed skin as the case might be.
Modi right now is spearheading the world’s biggest job generation exercise, hitherto unseen. At a scale never imagined before.
Let me explain.
The first thing that came to Modi’s notice when he came to power was India’s manufacturing that was in dire straits. He immediately started work on it by promoting chaiwalas. Suddenly there was a spurt in business, people lined up to sell tea. But that wasn’t enough. So he promoted pakodewalas.
There might be people who label these as services but in reality it is manufacturing. It doesn’t matter if we make pakodas or Rafale jets or super computers as long as we make something.
The economic model however was not sustainable. We had two sets of manufacturers who had started bartering in the absence of real customers.
India needed a leap in the services sector. That is where chowkidars fit in. Now we have a whole new class that will buy stuff manufactured by chaiwalas and pakorewalas.
Chowkidars were the missing piece in the Modinomics riddle.
The best part is every citizen gets to become a chowkidar. Just imagine Chowkidar Bhiku, a beggar by profession, walking up to Chowkidar Ambani or Chowkidar Adani, put his arms around their shoulders, and say “Tumhari chowkidari kaise chal rahi hai?” And they would reply with all humility and respect, “Modiji ke kripa se bahut achchi chal rahi hai.” All this under the watchful eyes of Chowkidar Yeddyurappa and Chowkidar Arun Jaitley.
Politicians, business tycoons, rape suspects, scamsters, racketers, teachers, honest tax payers, honest tax evaders, poets, actors, singers, underworld gangsters… all under one roof.
The chowkidari system is the biggest social experiment the world has seen.
Modi has achieved in five years what the Communists and Gandhians toiled for a century and failed. He certainly deserves a Nobel for entire economics.
First I was dismissive, then skeptical, but now I am a converted bhakt.
If there is one person I would pick to make a film to save my life , it would be Narendra Damodardas Modi. The best part is while his direction might look like Bollywood masala, if you keep watching again and again, the production will grow on you, and you get to see the deeper art, economics and politics of it all.
Now more than art and politics, I am more impressed by his innovative economics.
He will scrap 500 and 1000 rupee notes in the same way he finishes a piece of dhokla. He will kill jobs surveys, he will change growth calculation parameters -- like Kudiyan paramu finishes a double large in a single gulp.
There is a method in this madness.
Even I, despite all my powers of deduction and seduction, would have missed the big picture. After weeks of drinking whiskeys -- didn’t I tell you I have stopped drinking rum for health reasons -- and smoking joints, everything became clear, crystal clear.
Now I will clear your doubts one by one.
Let us take jobs for instance. We all agree maximum jobs are in the informal sector. The NSSO survey doesn’t cover it as well as it should. Yesterday at the maidan I saw a harmless game of cricket between Mulla XI and Sanghi XI - these days that is how they name their teams. And they were playing for money. It was a clear economic activity at the end of which one side would get richer by 1000 rupees, the other poorer by 1000 rupees. A proper business transaction with a profit and loss balance sheet which has not been recorded by any official mechanism.
Or for that matter the three people who were playing cards for money. Do you think any man ow woman with self-respect man would admit he earns his living playing teen patti. Does NSSO survey capture all this? Nah.
And why this obsession with money. Every bit of action and inaction has an economic value. A man sleeping in the park gets mental piece which definitely is worth the 1000 or 2000 rupees he would have otherwise earned doing some other work. By that logic sleeping on the park bench qualifies to be a job. And it definitely needs to reflect on GDP numbers, job surveys and happiness index.
You may laugh at Modi but at your own risk. His theory of climate change was derided when he proposed it to the international community, but a recent study has proved what he said beyond any doubt. The pathbreaking research has found climate change doesn’t affect human beings as they just adapt to the changes. For instance if the winter gets longer they just buy a few more sweaters or if the summers get hotter, they buy a few more air-conditioners. Homo sapiens may later grow fur or shed skin as the case might be.
Modi right now is spearheading the world’s biggest job generation exercise, hitherto unseen. At a scale never imagined before.
Let me explain.
The first thing that came to Modi’s notice when he came to power was India’s manufacturing that was in dire straits. He immediately started work on it by promoting chaiwalas. Suddenly there was a spurt in business, people lined up to sell tea. But that wasn’t enough. So he promoted pakodewalas.
There might be people who label these as services but in reality it is manufacturing. It doesn’t matter if we make pakodas or Rafale jets or super computers as long as we make something.
The economic model however was not sustainable. We had two sets of manufacturers who had started bartering in the absence of real customers.
India needed a leap in the services sector. That is where chowkidars fit in. Now we have a whole new class that will buy stuff manufactured by chaiwalas and pakorewalas.
Chowkidars were the missing piece in the Modinomics riddle.
The best part is every citizen gets to become a chowkidar. Just imagine Chowkidar Bhiku, a beggar by profession, walking up to Chowkidar Ambani or Chowkidar Adani, put his arms around their shoulders, and say “Tumhari chowkidari kaise chal rahi hai?” And they would reply with all humility and respect, “Modiji ke kripa se bahut achchi chal rahi hai.” All this under the watchful eyes of Chowkidar Yeddyurappa and Chowkidar Arun Jaitley.
Politicians, business tycoons, rape suspects, scamsters, racketers, teachers, honest tax payers, honest tax evaders, poets, actors, singers, underworld gangsters… all under one roof.
The chowkidari system is the biggest social experiment the world has seen.
Modi has achieved in five years what the Communists and Gandhians toiled for a century and failed. He certainly deserves a Nobel for entire economics.
