It is indeed a fact that the Congress party participated in the genocide of 2000 sikhs in 1984. I’d like to clarify that I’m neither pro-BJP or pro-Congress. The focus of this post is Mr. Narendra Modi.

I’d also like to respond to your regionalistic comment, ” Not like the bloodthirsty Moplahs of your state, against whom a special police force MALABAR SPECIAL POLICE, was established to keep them in control.”

I do not belong to the state of Kerala as you claim. I was born and live in Karnataka.

“A person is INNOCENT unless found guilty by a judge or court.That is our Rule of Law, the basis of our democracy. Modi was found innocent by the Supreme Court of India. That is not OK with crazies like you,” you say.

I’m not quite sure you read the post completely, for nowhere in the article do I accuse Mr. Modi of being responsible for the 2002 riots. The title of the post itself clearly indicates this.

A person is INNOCENT unless found guilty by a judge or court.That is our Rule of Law, the basis of our democracy. Modi was found innocent by the Supreme Court of India. That is not OK with crazies like you

The reason I pointed out the insertion of the term “conscription” is to show that people like Manu Joseph aren’t really translating Modi; they want their readers to believe something specific. I’ll have to hear Modi’s speech to be sure of what he actually said. I don’t know the details of Modi’s suggestion and the assessment of risk on the land in question, but in Gujarat the installation of solar panels has been quite profitable. This specific idea may or may not be workable, but it doesn’t sound obviously foolish.

To be sure, Guha is in a different category than Joseph. Every macroeconomic finding does need to be taken with a pinch of salt, but economists understand inequality quite well. An increase in inequality often occurs during economic development, even if everybody is better off.

Further, it isn’t at all clear that the phenomenon you’re describing is real. For example, this interesting graph: http://datastories.in/blog/2013/03/14/the-power-divide/
shows that most of India has reduced inequality in terms of access to electricity over the last decade. Some states like Rajasthan have increased inequality — but everybody is better off!

If your point is that all aggregate statistics should be viewed with skepticism and scrutinized from multiple angles, I’d agree. The tone of your article (from your title onwards) made it sound like you have reason to believe that Modi, more than other politicians, has improved economic indicators in Gujarat by enriching a few and impoverishing many. So far, there’s just not much evidence of that.

First off, thanks for reading my post and taking the time to post a lengthy comment.

Modi’s ideas are pretty good, you say. I’m not sure if installing solar panels over a huge area shared with another country with whom we haven’t had the best of relations would be a sensible, especially when you consider that such a massive project could cost millions of dollars. I’m sure these are the ideas which Modi considers to be his best. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have highlighted them in his speech.

Under Modi, Gujarat has seen a huge increase in economic measures of growth. These objective scales can be influenced greatly by skewed data. 1 very rich man and 10 poor men can still make for a very healthy per capita income. This is precisely what is happening in most parts of India, perhaps more so in Gujarat. Which is why, these always need to be taken with a pinch of salt.

With a vast horde of people picking through data daily to find something to criticize Modi’s performance with, it isn’t surprising that some less than ideal information turns up. People like Ram Guha deserve a great deal of respect for their contributions, but they tend to view Modi through heavily colored glasses (and Guha makes no bones about it). So, for example, when Guha says he doesn’t agree with economists on using aggregate measures, one has to wonder why that particular disagreement came up at this particular time. If that argument had been favorable to Modi, would Guha have brought it up? More importantly, the economist’s way is objective — the formula doesn’t change depending on who is being evaluated. (This isn’t 100% true, of course, but it’s more objective than individual observations by people walking around Gujarat.) Guha isn’t offering an alternative way of measuring Modi’s performance; he is simply stating he doesn’t think Modi did well based on his impressions from travels in Gujarat. But surely he knows that, when someone is so heavily biased, the impressions they form are likely to be biased as well!

Substantively, it is important how well the people of Gujarat are doing on an absolute scale. So the suffering of those in Saurashtra is a major issue. But to measure Modi’s performance, we need to see whether he has brought about a bigger aggregate CHANGE in Gujaratis’ lives compared to other administrators, taking into account factors like initial poverty levels, natural entrepreneurial nature of the people, drought, allocation of central government funds, etc.