NEW DELHI — In a speech meant to set a national agenda for his new government, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday announced plans to make bank accounts available to every Indian family, a complex goal that, if successful, could allow the government to eventually convert subsidies for food, fuel and fertilizer into cash transfers.
Mr. Modi’s Independence Day speech came about two months after a landslide victory in parliamentary elections and amid daunting expectations that his Bharatiya Janata Party would return India to the path of economic growth and create jobs for the millions of young people who enter the labor market every year.
Mr. Modi, 63, departed from the formal style of his predecessors, speaking for more than an hour without notes and describing himself as a newcomer to the capital, “untouchable to the elite class of Delhi.” He also refused the screen of bulletproof glass that has been erected to protect previous prime ministers.
A former outreach worker for a right-wing Hindu organization, he used his Independence Day speech to entreat Indians to act in the interest of the nation, saying he had been struck by the degree of infighting and self-interest he had encountered since moving to the capital.
“The time has come to think seriously about whether we have a national character or not,” he said. “Today, unfortunately, the atmosphere is that if you go to anybody for work, that person will immediately ask, ‘What is in this for me?’ When he learns that there is nothing for him, he will say, ‘Why should I?’ We have to break out of this cycle of ‘what is in this for me’ and ‘why should I?’ We need to shine our national character.”
With food inflation unabated since the election, Mr. Modi has been under pressure from supporters to flesh out his campaign promises with bold economic changes. The government’s first budget, presented in July, suggested that Mr. Modi’s government would tinker with, not dispose of, the economic policies it inherited, despite his relentless criticism of the Indian National Congress’s economic record during the campaign.
Mr. Modi’s promise to provide the poor with bank accounts may address some of that impatience, pointing to a long-term goal of converting distribution systems to cash payments, which would greatly reduce corruption and increase consumer spending. Account holders would be provided with a debit card and an insurance policy of up to 100,000 rupees, or about $1,600.
Mr. Modi said the programs could lessen the suffering of farmers, many of whom commit suicide under financial pressure. “For his daughter’s marriage, a poor man takes a loan from the moneylender that he cannot return,” he said.
Skeptics question whether access to banking — currently, 40 percent of Indian households lack it — can help in the absence of good jobs and higher wages; many bank accounts that have been created for poor Indians in recent years have gone unused, said Sujan Hajra, chief economist at Anand Rathi Financial Services.
But expanding banking infrastructure has long been a central goal for Raghuram Rajan, governor of the Reserve Bank of India, who has said it could “break a link between poor public service, patronage and corruption that is growing more worrisome.”
In a lecture earlier this week, Mr. Rajan described a gradual shift to cash benefits, noting that money could be delivered to the women of a family to prevent misspending on alcohol and other nonessentials.
Mr. Modi also announced the scrapping of India’s national Planning Commission, a body created by the country’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who admired the Soviet Union’s centralized planning.
Mr. Modi spoke repeatedly and bluntly about the treatment of women in India, citing statistics that reflect female infanticide and remarking, “I want to tell people, please don’t kill anybody’s daughter.” Noting the horrific sexual assaults that have become a regular theme in news coverage, he said Indian families should put more emphasis on raising their sons correctly, and less on monitoring their daughters.
“Fathers and mothers ask their 10-year-old daughters where they are going, and tell them, ‘Please make a phone call,’ but do they ask the same questions about their sons?” he said. “After all, that rapist is somebody’s son. He must have a mother and father.”
He called on listeners to join him in a nationwide campaign to improvesanitation, noting that many women, lacking toilets at home, wait for nightfall so they can defecate more discreetly outdoors. He promised to make toilets available in all of India’s schools within a year.
“We are living in the 21st century, and it is painful to see that our mothers and sisters are going to the toilet in the open — aren’t we all responsible for the dignity of our women?” he said. “I come from a poor family. I have seen poverty. For the poor to get respect, this is the beginning.”
The New York Times
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