Editorial 1 : Being neighbourly
Introduction: The presence of leaders from South Asia and the Indian Ocean at the swearing in of Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister of India for the third time underlines Delhi’s continuing commitment to the “neighbourhood first” policy. It also represents the stakes India’s neighbours have in strong and stable ties with this country.
About Neighbourhood First Policy
- India’s ‘Neighbourhood First policy’ guides its approach towards the management of relations with countries in its immediate neighbourhood, that is, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
- Objective: To enhance physical, digital and people to people connectivity across the region, as well as augmenting trade and commerce.
- The policy prioritises improving physical, digital, and people-to-people connectivity within the region, while also boosting trade and commerce.
- Over time, the Neighbourhood First Policy has become a key institutional focus across various government departments responsible for managing relations and policies with our neighbours.
The persistent challenges from neighbourhood
1. In general
- India inherits familiar foreign policy challenges in the neighbourhood.
- Over the last decade, Delhi’s engagement with the smaller neighbours has seen many twists and turns, frequent crises have become part of the regional landscape.
- But the presence of their leaders at the start of Modi’s third term underlines the deepening trend of interdependence that provides a basis for stability.
2. From Pakistan
- To be sure, the absence of Pakistan’s leadership on the occasion reflects the continuing challenge of normalising Delhi’s ties with Islamabad.
- Presumably, the government is keeping the back channel open, and exploring the possibilities for picking up threads from the talks that led to the announcement of a ceasefire in February 2021.
- Those talks indicated that the two sides were ready to unveil a series of incremental steps to ease bilateral tensions but the lack of consensus in Pakistan prevented the movement forward.
3. From China
- A bigger challenge awaits India in managing ties with China and seizing new opportunities for deepening ties with the West.
- PM Modi will have an opportunity to meet with Xi Jinping next month on the margins of a regional summit in Kazakhstan.
- The gloating in Chinese official media at the Modi-BJP’s failure to get a majority of its own in the Lok Sabha calls for caution in estimating the possibilities for an uptick in bilateral ties.
- From Beijing’s perspective, Modi’s reduced Lok Sabha majority reinforces the imbalance in power in favour of China.
The West’s view on India’s election result
- The West, in contrast, sees the resurgence of the Opposition in India as a triumph of Indian democracy.
- Although geo-economic (India’s growing market) and geopolitical factors (rebalancing Asia) were driving India and the West closer to each other over the last decade, widespread concerns in America and Europe over India’s so-called democratic backsliding had cast a shadow over the deepening strategic partnership.
- Those Western concerns would arguably recede amidst the revival of competitive domestic politics and accelerate security and economic cooperation between India on the one hand, and the West and its Asian allies on the other.
Conclusion: India will need all the goodwill it can command in order to navigate the increasingly complex world marked by intensifying conflict among the major powers and the restructuring of the global economic order.
Editorial 2 : The message from rural India
Introduction: Everyone is analysing the reasons behind the BJP's decline in popularity, interpreting them through their own lens. Anxieties about constitutional changes, social issues like caste or religion, economic concerns like unemployment and inflation, or the party's promises of welfare programs all influence voters' interpretations. It's unclear whether one factor dominated or if it was a combination.
A simplistic view on factor responsible for BJP’s loss
- It is hard to decipher the influence of all these factors.
- To take a simplistic view: Look at where the BJP lost most, constituency by constituency.
- It would be interesting to note that the BJP’s tally in rural-dominated constituencies came down from 253 in 2019 to 193 in 2024, a slide of 60 of the 63 seats the party lost in the election.
- It seems that rural India has sent a strong message to the BJP.
- More importantly, there are lessons for the new government as well as for those who have lost the elections.
Rural India's Economic Challenges
- Low income: Almost two-thirds of India's population lives in rural areas with a monthly expenditure of only Rs 3,773 per capita (NSO 2022-23). This translates to an average family income of around Rs 20,000 per month.
- Stagnant wages: Growth in real wages in rural areas has stagnated or declined during the Modi government's second term.
- Uneven income distribution: Income levels within rural areas vary, with agricultural households earning even less than the average.
- Government initiatives: The Modi government has implemented schemes for rural development, including toilets, housing, water supply, roads, and electricity.
- Limited impact: Despite these initiatives, rural income levels remain low, indicating a struggling rural economy.
Challenges in Indian Agriculture
- Slow growth: Agricultural GDP growth in 2023-24 (FY24) was a mere 1.4% according to the latest estimates.
- Lagging behind overall economy: This sluggish growth contrasts with the overall GDP growth of 8.2% in FY24.
- Impact on workers: With 45.8% of the workforce employed in agriculture, slow growth significantly impacts their well-being.
- Limited effectiveness of free food programs: Providing free grains offers temporary relief but doesn't address the need for substantial income improvement.
What could be the way forward for political parties?
1. A massive program for rural infrastructure, skill development, and employment is needed
- There are too many people dependent on agriculture.
- They need to move to higher productivity, non-farm jobs.
- This could be in rural areas to build rural infrastructure, or outside the rural economy to build urban India.
- It would require massive investments in skill formation for higher productivity jobs.
- The industry needs to pitch in to train people for meaningful jobs.
2. A robust strategy for high value farm production
- Within agriculture, the focus needs to shift from basic staples, especially rice which is in abundant supply, to high-value agriculture such as poultry, fishery, dairy and fruits and vegetables.
- High-value agriculture, being perishable, requires fast-moving logistics in a value chain approach — like the AMUL model in milk.
- The new government needs to chalk out a robust strategy for that.
3. Invest on climate smart agriculture
- Given the increasing number of climate change-induced extreme weather events (heat waves or flash floods), India needs to invest heavily in climate-smart agriculture, including agrivoltaics — solar as a third “crop” for farmers that can give regular monthly income even when other crops fail due to drought or floods.
Conclusion: The political parties will analyse their performance in recently concluded election. The rural distress has been a deciding factor behind the success and failures of political parties. The government and opposition must learn a lesson that rural population need more than just ‘freebies’. Keeping this in mind, government must bring far-reaching changes in agriculture, increase farm incomes, fine-tune priorities.