India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seen in this February 17, 2015 file photo.STRINGER/INDIA/Reuters
On a sunny afternoon in early April, I sat down for a light lunch at the historic Delhi Golf Club. I was dining with the genial proprietor of the bed and breakfast I was staying at in India's capital. A native of Mumbai, he had worked for a logistics company before opening up his quaint, white-washed abode, whose courtyard is patrolled lazily by adopted stray dogs. This particular hotelier is an unabashed supporter of India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He is also fond of calling Rahul Gandhi of the rival Congress Party a "duffer," which, regardless of your leanings, is a rather delightful epithet.
As we ate, watching golfers on the fairway and various prosperous-looking businessmen (they were all men) drift through the clubhouse patio, the one-year mark of Mr. Modi's administration was looming – and so was Mr. Modi's visit to Europe and Canada. Like the pre-monsoon heat before the rains, judgments and verdicts about Mr. Modi's time in power were beginning to thicken the heavy air, the euphoria of his election victory last May having long since dissipated.
My acquaintance, knowing my interest in Mr. Modi and likely expecting a positive appraisal, flagged down one of his golf buddies, who headed the Indian division of a major multinational – and had actually been invited along (at the last minute) as part of Mr. Modi's delegation. And what was his verdict on Mr. Modi's time in power?
"There are rumblings," the executive said with a world-weary tone, "that he's not a magic man."
The odd thing was this verdict – which hinted at a general disillusionment in the face of admittedly astronomical expectations for dramatic and immediate change – was not surprising at all. It was similar to what I had been hearing in numerous conversations with senior business people in finance, at startups and in infrastructure and manufacturing. There was some positive commentary, of course, on Mr. Modi's hectic international travel schedule burnishing India's dented image to his creation of a general appearance of momentum in India's economy. But the overwhelming sense among many businesspeople, as his first year ended was, "Is that all?"
Leaving aside the many people who loathe Mr. Modi for his Hindu nationalist background, and those who have never believed in Mr. Modi's so-called "Gujarat model" of development (from his time as the state's chief minister), the deflation of support from the business community is an interesting development as the nation slumps languidly past Mr. Modi's anniversary in power.
Last year, in the run-up to his monumental victory in India's five-week general elections, the business community was Mr. Modi's largest cheerleader – since the previous Congress administration had left the country wheezing under numerous corruption scandals. Given their experience in Gujarat, where Mr. Modi wooed industry with promises of cheap land instead of demanding bribes like some other state-level Indian leaders, the tycoons and industrialists of India had hoped for swift action on issues they thought were holding India back. Top among these concerns were arduous land-acquisition laws that prevent companies from building new factories or infrastructure and tough labour laws that discourage firms from hiring workers they will never be able to fire. On these matters, there has been no real progress thus far.
There has, of course, been progress elsewhere. Mr. Modi has cancelled and re-auctioned coal licences that were corruptly allocated by the previous government, and also executed a clean auction of wireless licences that netted the exchequer a cool $17.6-billion (U.S.), after the industry was tainted by a previous scam.
He has raised the amount of tax money that goes to powerful state-level governments, lifted foreign investment restrictions in certain sectors and sold off shares in state-owned companies. His sense of purpose and determined pro-business rhetoric, after decades of precarious coalition governments that survived through patronage, has boosted foreign investment and domestic business confidence. He has also launched several policies – such as Make in India, which is designed to boost manufacturing, and Act East, which is meant to focus India's pivot toward powerful Asian economies. Ruinous inflation is down. And certainly, the bureaucracy seems motivated and alive.
But for a broad sense of how subject area experts feel Mr. Modi has handled the various portfolios, one need only look at the names of section headings from a recent report on Mr. Modi's first year from the Carnegie Endowment: Agriculture: much left to do; Manufacturing: work in progress; Generating employment: time for the rubber to meet the road; Education: limited progress; Universal health coverage: awaiting a strategy; Land rights: the Modi government's missed opportunity; Energy reforms: an uneven road. It goes on, but I think you probably get the picture.
The opening section, trying to summarize optimistically, is titled "A historic mandate waiting to be seized" – with "waiting" being the operative word. When Mr. Modi's BJP was trounced in hotly competitive state elections in New Delhi, losing to a scrappy bunch of anti-corruption activists in the Aam Aadmi (Common Man) Party, many observers interpreted the loss as comeuppance for poor performance thus far. He even failed to seize on certain low-hanging fruit, such as helping farmers who had lost crops to unseasonable rains. Impoverished farmers rose up, and one farmer even hung himself from a tree at a protest organized by the Aam Aadmi Party.
With a clear majority in the lower house – and Mr. Gandhi spending much of recent memory on a mysterious, 57-day sabbatical – there has not been much standing in Mr. Modi's way. He could have acted quickly and decisively on bold, landmark reforms, such as the ones undertaken in 1991 by the Congress Party and then-finance minister Manmohan Singh. Instead, two half-hearted budgets later, Mr. Modi has many of his most ardent fans bemoaning a lack of progress and wondering whether it has been finding its feet – or squandering its mandate.
One ominous recent research report from the economic research firm Capital Economics asks: "Has Modi already missed his best opportunity?"
It is a good question. Starting later this year, with important elections in populous Bihar, Mr. Modi will be distracted by a number of important state-level legislative elections through 2017 – including ones in the massive state of Uttar Pradesh (with 200 million people), and others in important states such as Assam, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Kerala. Victories in these elections could consolidate Mr. Modi's power in the upper house (the Rajya Sabha) and help his long-term agenda. But victories may come at the cost of focus at the centre.
It is obviously too soon for any definitive verdict. But as appraisals roll in on the first year of his five-year term, it is clear Mr. Modi has not exactly cheered many of his economic-minded supporters in business and the commentariat. Two separate people told me that administrations in India spend the first year settling in and the last year doling out freebies. The middle years, they said, both using an analogy to cricket, is where the real action is.