Whether it be in health, education, housing or in other fields, the transformation of India through the Modi Revolution is coming into full view.
New Delhi: The difficulty in understanding the depth and range of the Modi Transformation of India is that the enormous volume of substantive changes that the Prime Minister of India is responsible for resembles an iceberg. Much of it has been hidden under the surface, with only a small bit visible on the surface. The 2025-26 Union Budget presented on February 1 by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who is and has always remained faithful to the vision and priorities of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has shown that the Modi Revolution has broken through the mist of obfuscation, and its immensity has emerged into clear view. A prediction made by the present writer was that Modi 3.0 is the term when such changes will begin to be tangible to citizens at an accelerating pace. In what follows, it is this vision and a list of some of the priorities which will be discussed to the knowledge of this writer about an individual whom he has studied and followed the trajectory of since PM Narendra Modi was a senior office holder of the Bharatiya Janata Party. In this capacity, he had appeared on a few television programs in which this writer was also a discussant. The interventions he made were few, but each was well thought out and revealed a mind focused on the unlocked potential of India and the raising of living standards for all of its citizens to levels consistent with what they deserve as citizens of the world’s most populous democracy. In particular, he made sure to mention issues confronting women and youth, two groups that aroused his particular attention. In the more than quarter century since then this vision, his focus, his list of priorities, has not altered in the slightest. In what follows, it is elements of this vision, consistency of purpose and priorities that will be detailed.
“Less government, more governance” was his credo in 2014, and innovations such as transferring governmental to a digital mode of activity in several fields of governance was in furtherance of that. Ultimately, the objective is to ensure that a citizen be enabled to spend his or her life without needing to visit a single government office. All such necessary tasks would be possible remotely. Already, leakages of subsidies to middlemen in MNREGA and other such Central schemes have been addressed through direct transfers of money to individual bank accounts. Field after field of the mechanism of governance is heading the same way. Not that the steel frame of government would disappear. It would remain, so as to assure internal and external security and the creation and implementation of a governance path that would promote economic and societal progress.
Empowerment of women and youth would be emphasised. Throughout his period of official service as Chief Minister and subsequently Prime Minister, ensuring empowerment of women and youth has remained a priority. The girl child has received particular attention, the intent being to ensure that the potential of the women of India gets utilised in the same way as that of men. There have been periods when paternalism was the norm, and even in business families, women were not encouraged to take up executive roles. Since 2014, such discrimination has become rare. Women have become equal partners of men, and daughters and daughters-in-law have been placed into positions as or more responsible than that of the men in the family. As for youth, there was a time when in government in particular, any suggestion made by a young person was ignored, such that the changes needed to remain contemporary were put off. These days, the young are encouraged to come out with ideas, which are from the start taken seriously.
Making accessibility to knowledge mainstream is another priority. In a country where before 2029 more than 900 million citizens will have access to the internet, elements of the medium are being designed to ensure to inter alia that farmers get a real time picture of market opportunities, and reduce the role of, and the markup charged by, such middlemen, so that the price secured by the farmer is closer to that charged to the consumer. Rather than omnibus laws covering the entire country in a field as varied as agriculture, states and ultimately districts will be given the choice or choices of which marketing system to utilise. States that do better will soon have their example followed by others.
Innovation is being stressed and encouraged. Too many talented minds have in the past found the system of regulation and access to funds below par, so that they have been forced to go abroad, thereby giving another country the benefit of their talent. This has been changing during Modi 2, the period of consolidation, and is accelerating during Modi 3.0, the period of innovation. Fields such as Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) are being developed, and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has indicated that India will have its own version of DeepSeek within a year. Although DeepSeek is being advertised as costing a mere $5 million to develop, the reality is that it is the end product of billions of dollars of state expenditure, mainly in using offshore locations based in Singapore and elsewhere to access US tech innovations and silently transfer them to China. Countries that serve as fronts for PRC enterprises are now coming under the scanner of India and the US. Whether it be in health, education, housing or other fields, the transformation of India through the Modi Revolution is coming into full view. The 2025-26 Union Budget presented by Finance Minister Sitharaman is an unmistakable herald of such changes.