A tale of two Prime Ministers, of a lost decade

It's rather ironic that Manmohan Singh, who unleashed sweeping market reforms in 1991, should have presided over their virtual demise during his second term as Prime Minister (2009-14).

Then, what if Manmohan Singh had not needed his bypass surgery in January 2009 and had carried on holding the additional charge of Finance?

"As it turns out, destiny had a hand too in the grave mistake the UPA made by bringing (Pranab) Mukherjee into the Finance Ministry ahead of Singh's bypass.

With Singh indisposed, perhaps the decision makers had no choice.

But it has become increasingly clear that the Congress and the economy have paid a heavy price for it," award-winning journalist Puja Mehra writes in her new book "The Lost Decade - 2008-18; How India's Growth Story Devolved into Growth Without a Story" (Penguin).

Before Mukherjee's appointment as Finance Minister, Mehra writes, India was on the verge of being christened a "miracle economy".

By the time Mukherjee exited (in July 2012 to become the President), large fiscal deficits and a huge international debt position had made the country vulnerable to global financial shocks and terms-of-trade shocks.

By the time Mukherjee moved to Rashtrapati Bhawan, the government was under attack for "policy paralysis" - much has been written on this - its policy reforms relating to foreign investment in organised retail and insurance "were in a limbo and it had failed to make headway in implementing taxation reform."

Cut to the present.

The economic slump that Narendra Modi inherited "was not as grave as the 1991 crisis, although the expectations were certainly greater".

The country had handed him a decisive mandate for steering India towards quick and quality growth, by which more and more people could get quality jobs, health and education.

However, in four years, "the Modi government could not offer even a road map or a strategy for remaking the broken economic system.

Even the GST's game-changing potential was frittered away because of its flawed rate structure and red-tape-ridden implementation."

The author laments that in the "ten years that have been lost negotiating political setbacks, external and self-made shocks and chronic policy failures, what was called the 'India Growth Story' has become 'Growth without a story'".