Growth can`t be expressed in just numerical terms

We in the Bharatiya Janata Party, or in the Jana Sangh earlier, never had any doubt about India's development potential, nor were we ever opposed to the steps needed to unleash it. Indeed, I am proud of the fact that ours is the only party that consistently raised its voice against the growth-stifling licence-quota-permit raj, which the Congress had established under the influence of the Communist system in the erstwhile Soviet Union. It was not ideologically fashionable and acceptable those days to speak in favour of the private sector. The Communists, in particular, used to hurl all kinds of epithets at us, drawn from their rich vocabulary of demonology. However, history has vindicated us against the Communists, in respect of both our economic thinking as well as our advocacy for democracy.
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Let me add here that ours was also the only party that spoke, even in 1960s and 1970s, in favour of Indian companies emerging as successful multinationals. We had faith in the potential of our native companies, and it too has been vindicated in the spectacular manner in which Indian business houses are expanding their footprint internationally.
If the people give the BJP and the NDA another mandate to form the government at the Centre, I assure you that we will be even more pro-business, pro-growth and pro-India. Our goal will be to achieve double-digit GDP growth rate on a sustainable basis.
Let me, however, add a caveat here. India's growth objectives cannot be presented in abstract numerical terms - 8 per cent, 9 per cent or 10 per cent and more. For growth to be meaningful, it must change the lives of the vast majority of our ordinary people, both in rural and urban areas. For growth to be meaningful, it must be equitable, both geographically and socially.
Has India achieved this type of economic growth, which is necessary and conducive to development in the real sense of the term? Certainly not. Shri Bimal Jalan, former governor of the Reserve Bank of India, has remarked recently that the earnings of 20 richest Indians is more than that of 30 crore poorest Indians. Therefore, it seems to me that just as India's economic growth was earlier heavily influenced by the Soviet model, now it has swung to the other end of the pendulum by imitating the western model. India's current problems cannot be solved, and future needs cannot be fulfilled, by following yet another alien model.
I must point out here that just as my party was against excessive state control of the economy, it was also opposed to the idea of the state having no role in the economic life of the nation. In other words, we have never favoured free enterprise, trickle-down theory, etc. The democratic state has a definite and inescapable duty to orient economic growth towards desirable social ends - what in the Indian ethos is termed as Bahujan Hitaya, Bahujan Sukhaya (for welfare and happiness of the masses). The concept of Antyodaya (development of the 'last man' in society) has been extolled by both Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya.
Indeed, economic growth should not only benefit every individual and every section in society, but it should also be protective of the environment. This too is an integral part of the Indian outlook towards the relationship between man and nature. In recent decades, concern for environmental degradation has grown all over the world. And so is the awareness that the western model of development is not quite environment-friendly.
This being the case, I am more convinced than ever before that we in India have to evolve an Indian model of development that is in alignment with India's needs, is guided by the Indian outlook towards life, and relies on the full participation of Indians themselves. Haven't many countries around the world been trying to evolve their own model of development, based on their specific conditions, constraints, resources and cultures? I can cite the example of China, Singapore, Malaysia, Turkey, Russia and several others.
Time has come for all the key players who are associated with India's economic growth to evolve a common approach towards how to achieve accelerated growth with the primary objective of poverty eradication.