Brown Pundits

So a quick follow-up to my previous post wherein I had noted the problem of the poorer states underperforming the richer ones on economic growth, widening the economic inequality between the two groups and driving risks to the federal polity.

The  chart below compares the per capita income of TN vs each poor state for 2013-14 and 2024-25. In 2013-14, TN’s PCI was already 3.0x of UP. That number has since ballooned to 3.64x by 2024-25. TN has delivered a pretty solid annual growth rate of 6.1% while UP has lagged behind significantly with a lackluster growth rate of 4.3%. I pick TN for a few reasons  – one, TN growth rate is close to the median growth rate of the rich group. More importantly, the politics of the state has long drawn on the grievance of Northern/Hindi hegemony, insufficient federalism and the state getting an unfairly low share of central tax devolution. Thirdly, I am being a bit petty – a lot of people on the Hindu Right have a very unfavorable view of TN (because of its anti-Hindu Dravidian polity) which drives them to be in denial of TN’s economic success. There is this hilarious claim about UP overtaking TN on the economic front because of its nominal GDP pulls ahead of TN, totally ignoring the fact the relevant metric should be per capita.

Anyway, back to the analysis. this chart should really alarm Modi’s policymaking team. Except for Odisha, every other state in the group has become poorer relative to TN over the past 11 years. The only other state with a respectable performance is Assam where the gap has widened only modestly. If you look at the average of the group, TN was 1.8x richer in 2013-14 which has widened to 216% by 2024-25.

(Kerala is not really a poor state but I have included it in this group it lags behind on industrialization)

For the record, replicating the same analysis for the richer group, Delhi has been the biggest underperformer. Followed by the two BJP-ruled states – Maharashtra and Haryana. TN is now slightly richer than Haryana, whereas in 2013-14, Haryana was ~20% richer than TN. Similar story for Maharashtra – TN is now 11% richer on a per capita basis. On the other hand, Karnataka has modestly outperformed TN, in large part due to the significant growth momentum from offshoring.  Telengana, carved out as a separate state, has benefitted having a major economic hub like Hyderabad apart from with its positive impact spread over a smaller economic base.

 

Update: A reader tells me the charts are difficult to read. You can check out the charts and the data in excel format here

Since BJP captured power in the centre in 2014 with a stunning majority, the party has made a concerted attempt to deepen its dominance by making strong bids for power in the states. And it has worked extremely well for the party. It has captured power in states which were virgin territories for the party (Haryana, Assam), has staged an impressive bounceback in UP after more than a decade of political wilderness (or vanavas, if you will), has moved from being the junior partner to becoming the dominant party in the highly critical state of Maharashtra (the largest economy in the country) and formed its first single party government in the South (Karnataka).

A common feature of the party’s state election campaign has been the appeal of the “double engine” sarkar, a not-so-subtle message to the electorate that a BJP/NDA government in the state could mean greater resource support from the centre for the state’s development. And that has been delivered in some visible ways – Uttar Pradesh, the second poorest  among the larger states, has six metros while the richest and the highly urbanised ones have one, or a maximum of two.

But has the “Double Engine” promise actually worked on the ground? Is it the case that NDA-ruled states have outperformed on economic growth? This question has additional relevance – since the 2024 Lok sabha election setback, the growing chorus in RW circles has been that there are not many “big bang” economic reforms left for the entre to do and it is the states which need to do the heavy lifting. Since BJP positions itself as the natural party of governance, the question therefor is whether it has a demonstrable model of economic governance for the states.

A look at the annual growth in per capita income (real) of the larger states (population > 10 million) over the last 11 years indicates that NDA ruled states have been relative underperformers. For this exercise, I am defining a NDA-ruled state as one where the state BJP unit was either the ruling party or a major partner in the ruling coalition (Bihar and Maharashtra). I exclude states like Andhra and Tamil Nadu, where BJP was a minor force, even though ruled by NDA alliance partners.

Of the 19 large states, seven states have grown at an annual rate above the simple average of the group (4.9%). Of this, only two were NDA-ruled states for 5 years or more- Gujarat and Assam. The remaining 5 states are non-NDA states. Four of the five southern states share the honor (with Kerala being the sole exclusion) of being outperformers. Conversely, 8 out of the 12 states which underperformed the group average were NDA-ruled ones for more than 5 years.

 

Source: Government of India

For all the hype from his supporters regarding Yogi’s economic record, he does quite badly, underperforming the average by 0.6% despite an extremely low base.

NDA ruled states also do pretty badly if one focusses only on the richer, more industrialized states. Only Gujarat, with its well-established Gujarat Model, initiated under Modi’s CM’ship outperforms the group average. The weak performance of Haryana, a small state with a highly advantageous location (near the National Capital region) where the BJP has ruled uninterruptedly, is especially disappointing. It indicates that BJP as a ruling party, has not yet been able to fashion an effective industrial policy.

Beyond the issue of party politics, the real worry is that the poorer states are significantly underperforming the richer ones (avg of 5.5% vs 4.5% for the poorer states) thereby further widening the inter-state inequality and putting increasing strain on the federal polity. Most of these states happen to be in the Hindi heartland – a region, where Modi swept twice with a seat share of 80% on more on the promise of acche din or economic prosperity. Well, it is the 12 year and the acche din is not yet in sight.  Disillusionment is setting in and that was surely a major driver for the 2024 setback. It could get worse in the next election. Time is running out for Modi and his party.

 

Update: A reader tells me the charts are difficult to read. You can check out the charts and the data in excel format here

Anyone who is slightly familiar with Hindu mythology or Hindu cosmology knows that ancient Indians were fond of extremely large time periods. According to traditionalists the war of Mahabharata happened more than 5000 years ago (3102 BCE). A Yuga is supposed to last for 1.08 million years. A Yuga cycle, consisting of 4 Yugas, is 4.32 million years long. Who came up with these numbers ?

The story behind these numbers is quite interesting. Although the word Yuga goes back to Vedic age, Vedic texts do not mention these numbers. The specific numbers were first introduced by Aryabhata, who was born in 476 CE. According to his definition a new Yuga begins whenever all five visible planets along with the Sun and the Moon have zero celestial longitude (we are using the current terminology here, Aryabhata used the word Yugapda to denote a Yuga). The first verse of Aryabhatia, his only surviving work, states the following :

Aryabhatia 1.1 : In a yuga cycle the revolutions of the Sun are 4,320,000, of the Moon 57,753,336, of the Earth eastward 1,582,237,500, of Saturn 146,564, of Jupiter 364224, of Mars 2,296,824, of Mercury and Venus the same as those of the Sun.

The accuracy levels of these estimates are reasonably high, ranging from 99.9 percent (period of Saturn) to 99.999 percent (period of Earth’s rotation). It is possible to get this level of accuracy from 20-30 years of naked eye observations. Not surprisingly, the exact numbers are all wrong. Assuming an error margin of 0.3 degrees for an observation, one needs 3600 years of sky watching to count the exact numbers of revolutions in 1.08 million years. Aryabhata definitely knew this but he also accepted the traditional view that the current Yuga started during the war of Mahabharata (Aryabhatia 1.3). Seven astronomical objects having celestial longitudes close to zero is a very strong condition, and the initial estimates he obtained from 20-30 years of observations were good enough to rule out all years in the past few thousand years except 3102 BCE. So he concluded that the beginning of the current Yuga and Mahabharata war happened in in 3102 BCE.

Aryabhatia 3.10 : When three Yugas and sixty times sixty years had elapsed (from the beginning of the Yuga cycle) then twenty three years of my life had passed.

Since he could directly see the positions of the celestial objects during 499 CE vernal equinox, the assumption that they all had zero longitude in 3102 BCE meant having observations separated by 3600 years. This allowed him to make extremely precise claims about their periods. At the same time he was forced to increase the length of a Yuga to 1.08 million years to ensure that all the celestial objects make complete revolutions.

Why did he come up with the concept of Yuga cycle and how did he know that we are in the fourth Yuga of the current Yuga cycle ? This is related to two abstract points corresponding to apsidal and nodal precession of Moon’s orbit. Aryabhata wanted to include them in the list of celestial objects but his initial estimates showed that their celestial longitudes were closer to -270 degrees and 180 degrees in 3102 BCE. So he introduced a 4.32 million years long Yuga cycle and assumed that we are in the fourth Yuga.

How do we know all these details ? As remarked earlier, Aryabhata’s model was not accurate enough to go 3600 years in the past and detect a Yuga changing moment. However if we calculate the positions during 499 CE equinox using modern technology and apply Aryabhata’s model to go back another 3600 years, then celestial longitudes of the first seven objects become close to zero. The probability of this being a pure coincidence is less than one in a billion. The only logical conclusion is that Aryabhata was born in 476 CE and his definitions and methods were as described above.