THE PAIN IN HIS KNEES, SAY those who know him intimately, offers insight into Shivraj Singh Chouhan and why he retains a singularly low profile, despite ruling one of India’s largest and fastest-growing states, Madhya Pradesh, for eight years. The injury harks back to Chouhan’s political roots in times of unprecedented turmoil, both in India and within his party, the national opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The year was 1977. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was sending her political opponents to jail during the Emergency. In Bhopal, the state capital, a student activist from an anti-Gandhi underground movement was arrested and sent to the Bhopal Central Jail. He belonged to no political party, but had been inspired to activism by political leader Jayaprakash Narayan’s anti-Emergency protests. The police demanded that Chouhan, then in his late teens, give them the addresses of his associates. He refused and was beaten repeatedly over the course of his nine-month imprisonment. Both his knees were permanently injured. Still he refused. A college friend, now a top bureaucrat in his government, says: “He knew this was trial by fire; that this would grant him stature. And he could not betray his friends.”
The chief minister does not deny that this was the defining moment of his early political life. “I was a poor man’s son and I would not betray others like me. The place from where we sent out pamphlets was a tea stall. If I gave the owner’s name, he and his family would be finished,” says Chouhan, now in the middle of his second term as chief minister. “My grandmother could not deal with the fact of my imprisonment. She fell ill and died a few months later.” However, he is matter of fact about his courage in the face of threats and enduring the painful consequences.
Word of his actions caught the attention of similarly imprisoned members of the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the BJP’s ideological parent. Motivated by its pro-Hindu beliefs, Chouhan became a member of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, an RSS-inspired national student organisation, and later of the BJP.
Chouhan, who has so far focussed on agriculture, is increasingly being positioned as a business-friendly leader. At a recent dinner by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in Mumbai, businessmen from Indore, Madhya Pradesh’s business capital, repeatedly mentioned Chouhan’s economic policies and how they were transforming the state. There have also been ads tom-tomming Chouhan’s achievements. These include the rise in Madhya Pradesh’s wheat procurement, the new highways that have been built, and the extent of drip irrigation across the state. For example, from 14,787 kilometres of constructed road in 2003, Madhya Pradesh today has 73,245 kilometres, and is targeting a further 34,710 kilometres in the remaining two years of Chouhan’s tenure.
He has also been quietly developing links with influential businessmen such as Anil Ambani, who has promised to invest Rs 7,500 crore to build, among other things, power plants. In 2010, at the first global investors’ meet in Khajuraho, Ambani declared that Madhya Pradesh was set to become one of India’s fastest growing regions. The state government has also had discussions with Hindalco to build an aluminium plant, Essar and Jaypee for power plants, and Infosys and Wipro for IT development centres.
Last month, when he went on a tour of Japan, Singapore, and Korea to court foreign investors, his entourage included 28 businessmen and many of the state’s senior bureaucrats. While visiting Samsung’s facilities in Suwon, Korea, the chief minister made a pitch for the multinational to set up factories in Madhya Pradesh. His line: Madhya Pradesh (literally ‘middle state’) is geographically best suited for any company that wishes to build a pan-India presence.
IT IS AN INTERESTING TIME to be Chouhan. The BJP has a leadership crisis at a time when it believes it has a good chance of winning power at the Centre for the first time in a decade, with the ruling Congress Party beleaguered by corruption charges and infighting. BJP patriarch Lal Krishna Advani is unlikely to get support for a second shot at prime ministership after the party lost the 2009 elections under him. Other big leaders Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley lack voter bases and are overshadowed by flamboyant Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, who dominates headlines in India and abroad. While he’s beginning to position himself as a national leader, Modi has never quite recovered from the Hindu-Muslim riots that occurred in Gujarat in 2002. It is far from clear if he will be accepted by the BJP’s political partners, without whom the party cannot hope to form the next government. Bihar’s chief minister Nitish Kumar of the Janata Dal (United) party, for example, has already refused. Yet, it is unlikely that the BJP will accept a Prime Minister from one of its smaller partners in the National Democratic Alliance if they come to power.
At such a time, Chouhan is being presented as a successful administrator, an alternative, say his aides sotto voce, to Modi. “Everywhere you hear only of Modi,” says one who recently organised lunches with Chouhan and a few top editors in Delhi to help them “understand him better. He is reticent but we are determined to take him all the way to Delhi.” The lunches followed a familiar pattern—the conversations centred on Madhya Pradesh’s rising economy. Chouhan’s advisors may well have read Modi’s playbook. As the Gujarat chief minister’s rise suggests, ultimately investments, factories, jobs, and roads get the most attention.
It’s difficult to say whether, as his fawning aides suggest, Chouhan will have a stab at being the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate. A party veteran who was closely associated with Advani and Atal Bihari Vajpayee when he was Prime Minister, says Chouhan is nowhere close to being a national leader yet. But, and this is key, he is seen as relevant to many of the issues the BJP faces. It lacks a tall leader from the Hindi heartland who can deliver economic goals, remain grounded in Hindu identity, and not alienate the minorities. Chouhan ticks all these boxes so far. He is, in many ways, a consensus candidate.
Moreover, Chouhan’s brand of Hindutva doesn’t ruffle feathers, yet allows him to be perceived as someone furthering the RSS agenda. For instance, the state gives financial assistance to its citizens headed on Hindu pilgrimages, mimicking the Centre’s support to Muslim pilgrims on Haj, a sort of non-confrontational Hindutva. Behind Chouhan’s desk is a mammoth portrait of Swami Vivekananda, a man he quotes often. (Swami Vivekananda spoke about the universal brotherhood of man and positioned Hinduism as a philosophy rather than a religion.)
WHEN ASKED ABOUT DELHI, Chauhan says, “I have a lot to do for Madhya Pradesh; there are many tasks ahead. I have no further ambition but I will shirk nothing. If there is a call, I am always ready to fulfil my duty.”
Even without political reasoning, Madhya Pradesh under Chouhan is an unsung success story of governance, much like Modi’s Gujarat. Once prime among the BIMARU states (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh, an acronym of perpetually laggard states), it has recorded one of the highest rates of growth in the last eight years. Last year it was 10.02%. In 2010-11, the gross state domestic product (GSDP) grew by 9%, and the year before it was 9.55%. Growth was around 3% till Chouhan became chief minister in 2004.
Then, at a time when growth in the sector across India has been negligible, agriculture in Madhya Pradesh grew by 9% last year. In 2009-10, when the state got 35% less rainfall than usual, agrarian growth was still 10.5%. The BJP man says the RSS sees Chouhan as the next big farmer leader, much like former Prime Minister Chaudhary Charan Singh or former Deputy Prime Minister Chaudhary Devi Lal. So far, the BJP has lacked such men. “Much of India is still about rural votes. If he has to play a national role, this is his natural strength. He is a true son of the soil.”
“He is a hardcore farmer,” says Madhya Pradesh’s agriculture production commissioner Madan Mohan Upadhyay. “He came in focussed—most people work in agriculture here, so growth has to be agriculture driven first and then industrial.”
Upadhyay points to a key achievement: reducing agricultural interest rates from around 12% to the current 1%. Borrowings have doubled from around Rs 3,000 crore four years ago to around Rs 7,500 crore now. Upadhyay expects it will touch Rs 10,000 crore in the next five years.
Chouhan’s 1% credit scheme even wins praise from food activist Devinder Sharma, a vitriolic critic of the Indian government’s apathy towards agriculture. “Madhya Pradesh showed the way for constructive government intervention at a time when microfinance institutions were charging between 24% and 36%. It positioned Chouhan as a pioneer.” But he is quick to say that Chouhan’s faults lie elsewhere: “He talks a lot about the river Narmada as the mother, but has that stopped the river from being dammed? No.”
On Chouhan’s watch, crop production has risen from 142 lakh tonnes in 2003 to 254 lakh tonnes today; crop productivity from 831 kilograms per hectare to 1,223 kilograms; and wheat production from 49.23 lakh tonnes to 110 lakh tonnes.
He also introduced a bonus of Rs 100 (the only state to do so) on the minimum wheat procurement price set by the central government at Rs 1,285 per quintal. Between March 15 and May 27 this year, wheat procurement was a staggering 76 lakh tonnes from 86 lakh farmers with payments of Rs 11,000 crore.
But where is the money coming from? A large part is from the central government and that, says Rahul Banerjee, is one of Chouhan’s notable failures. Banerjee, a civil engineer from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, in West Bengal, has worked with the Bhil tribals of Madhya Pradesh for the last 27 years, during which time he has also studied governance in the state closely. He says Chouhan is a better administrator than his predecessors, especially the Congress’s Digvijay Singh, but cautions that the state’s problems are far from over.
For instance, Banerjee points out that Madhya Pradesh’s tax collection contributes only around 40% to its annual revenues compared to around 70% for similarly-sized Tamil Nadu (both have roughly 72 million people).
“This also means that Madhya Pradesh’s tax-to-GSDP ratio is around 8.5% compared to 10% for Tamil Nadu and 17% nationally. This points to such rampant corruption in the collection of taxes, excise, and duties that the state is ever more dependent on the Centre.” Last year, 43% of Madhya Pradesh’s budget came from central funds and grants. Some of this dependence shows up even in agriculture. This year, as Madhya Pradesh farmers hauled in a record production of wheat, the state complained that there were not enough gunny bags for storage.
Chouhan says he’s playing for the long haul in agriculture. “If you look at history, development has always happened first, and most expansively, in states with ports as in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal. But ours is a landlocked state. So we focus on agriculture first. Our aim is to become the wheat bowl of the country. As I keep telling people, ‘Take wheat from us. We are centrally located so it is easier to transport to any part in India. We are a natural road transport hub.’ It is win-win for the country.”
Signs of change are evident. Madhya Pradesh now gets almost 47% of its GSDP from industrial activity, with agriculture coming third (23.6%) after services (29.5%). From 2003 to 2011, mining revenues rose from Rs 614 crore to Rs 3,111 crore, and industrial investment went up from Rs 7,395 crore to Rs 84,700 crore.
This is where the comparison with Modi comes in. Madhya Pradesh’s revenue receipts of Rs 4,344 crore in 2010-11 almost mirror Gujarat’s at Rs 4,948 crore, while Madhya Pradesh has less revenue expenditure at Rs 4,186 crore compared to Rs 5,398 crore for Gujarat in the same year. Madhya Pradesh in 2010-11 had a higher capital receipt of Rs 11,088 crore compared to Gujarat at Rs 7,442 crore, and their capital expenditure is also comparable with Madhya Pradesh at Rs 11,240 crore and Gujarat at Rs 7,048 crore. The punch line: like Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh now has a revenue surplus budget.
Chouhan, says personal secretary Manoj Srivastava, is consistently sweating the small stuff as he tracks the bigger picture. “It is all in the nuances. You don’t see him making a noise about the fuel price hike [when the Centre upped petrol prices by more than Rs 7 last month]. He will do all he can but he understands the global situation and the subsidy burden.” Of course, it’s another matter that Chouhan observed a day’s fast in mid-June, protesting the central government’s proposal to hike fertiliser prices.
Madhya Pradesh chief secretary R. Parasuram says one of Chouhan’s biggest successes was building an identity for the state, through the “Hindustan ka dil dekho” TV campaign to boost state tourism. Between 2002 and 2011, the number of tourists increased six-fold. Parasuram says, “The mood of the state is: ‘Our time has come. With a capital C.’ ”
CHOUHAN, MEANWHILE, WOULD RATHER talk business. He discusses his ongoing jousts with the environment ministry for the allocation of coal blocks within the state and is confident the matter will soon be resolved. “In two years, we will be a power surplus state.” Then, he says, unlike other states which promise ‘single window’ clearances, he has a ‘single table’ clearance policy. “Sometimes, after the window, one has to go to many tables,” says Chouhan. “Here, there is only my table. Everything is cleared from here, no confusion.” An aide helpfully adds that the chief minister is trying to ensure that industrialists are not harangued for donations. Says Chouhan, “Our pitch is simple: We have no land acquisition issues in Madhya Pradesh, we are willing to work out the best price for land and we will ensure a peaceful, secure environment, to do business.”
Gautam Kothari, president of a state industry body called the Pitampura Audyogik Sansthan Association, says while it is true that Madhya Pradesh promises unlimited power to industry, pricing that power is another matter. “The government has no control over price. The cost of power has gone up by 50% in the last four years. That hurts competitiveness.” Madhya Pradesh is now among the top five states in power costs, though Chouhan says things will get better in a couple of years; with the allocation of coal blocks, the state expects to start selling power to its neighbours.
This is good news for Sushil Prakash, head of two manufacturing companies, Omega Renk Bearings (it makes slide bearings) and SunCarrier Omega (renewable energy solutions, including solar panels), which work closely with European, especially German, firms such as machine tools giant Gildemeister. Prakash wants to tell Chouhan that the world must know about Madhya Pradesh. “We have so much going for us. Our population is low, but educated, the crime rate is low in our cities, and the roads are good, but how many know?”
Recently, Prakash persuaded Stuttgart-based cable manufacturer Siegbert Lapp to switch to Madhya Pradesh. “He was very keen on Bangalore and when I first mentioned Madhya Pradesh, the only thing he knew about Bhopal was the gas tragedy [Union Carbide’s infamous 1984 poisonous gas leak]. But when I showed him around Madhya Pradesh, he came here with an investment of Rs 200 crore, with further plans of Rs 300 crore.”
Praveen Toshniwal, chairman of Nivo Controls, a process control instrument maker, and head of CII’s western region, says Madhya Pradesh needs a dose of smart sell, if not hard sell. “Madhya Pradesh is a quiet state but that must change, since every state is competing for the same resources.”
Perhaps Chouhan needs to become savvier. During the photo shoot, he was visibly shy. “Won’t one or two shots do?” he asked. “It is very important we do this,” quipped Srivastava. “Modi gets shoots like these done every week.”