The argument in recent political discourse has often been that India is missing an alternative in the form of the “Left”. This notion has gained momentum after the near erasure of the Communist Party of India form their bastion of West Bengal in the last decade. The waning influence of the “Left” is something many political commentators lament upon. Their argument primarily rallies around the influence of the left ideology on the economic policy framework of India. It is seen as a necessary evil of sorts to have ideologies driven by the principles of socialism (or even communism) to balance the ideas of free market liberalism emanating from the other side.

However, I will submit that this narrative is not entirely aligned with reality. Or atleast that is what the last 15 years of economic policy in India would seem to suggest. India is missing an alternative political ideology, not left or left of centre but, that is truly free market oriented (and by the conventional view lies to the right of centre of the political spectrum).

Let us take the economic policies of the last 15 years. The UPA 1, having won an election that no one expected them to win, cobbled together a motley group of political parties which also included the communists lending outside support. It is noteworthy that this was a time when the communists were at the height of their power and had enormous influence in government. 2004 was the best performance of the Left in general Lok Sabha elections in India. Hence, it was rather unsurprising that despite having a Prime Minister who spearheaded the liberalization reforms in the early 90s, the UPA 1 shied away from any major free market reforms. Infact, the UPA 1 ended their tenure with a massive dole out in the form of farm loan waivers. Now, although a humanitarian argument can be made in favor of farm loan waivers (which in some cases even yours truly would tend to agree with), there is little doubt in economic scholarship that farm loans waivers are bad economics.  In the long run they end up hurting the same farmers that the waiver is supposed to salvage.

There is very little to speak about the economic policies of UPA 2 because there is hardly any to speak of. It comes as no shock that (fairly or unfairly) the phrase “policy paralysis” got associated with the UPA 2.

Cut to the NDA under Modi. In 2014 Narendra Modi arguably ran the most successful PR campaign in the electoral history of independent India. The central theme of his campaign was that of “Vikas”. By and large this “Vikas” was seen to indicate economic development. Recovering from the horrendous experience under the UPA 2, almost the entire investor community were perfectly willing to give Modi (his enormous divisive baggage notwithstanding) the benefit of doubt that his “Vikas” was to be achieved by unleashing the “animal spirits” through free market reforms. It was assumed beyond doubt that we finally had an economic liberator at the helm of policy making who was not shackled by the modus vivendi of coalition politics.

There was just one problem. Never in history have autocrats created an environment promoting laissez-faire. You see, “Authoritarian” and “Free” rarely tend to end up on the same side of a proposition. Many failed to see the inherent contradiction in the argument that one needs a strong leader to create an environment whose founding principle is that authority should play as little role as possible.

The expectations were that Modi would bring about the contentious labor and land reforms thereby promoting entrepreneurship. It was expected he would substantially reduce the government ownership of banks thereby alleviating the moral hazard problem of public sector banks. It is no surprise that public sector banks in India far underperform their private sector counterparts. It was also expected that Modi would have a benign outlook towards free trade. But we were to have none of it. Little did we know that Modi was to emerge as a statist whose ferocity would put Indira Gandhi to shame.

Far from acting as passive enablers, creating an environment where economic agents could interact freely, the Modi Sarkar was the most in-your-face government India had witnessed in decades. Be it invalidating 86% of India’s currency in circulation overnight with a stated objective that left almost all (honest) economists scratching their heads. Or be it the hastiness in implementing an ill-structured indirect tax policy. Or even picking up a fights with the once revered Reserve Bank of India that saw some world renowned economists quit and culminated in a governor resigning. Modi was anything but free market oriented. But the thing is that these actions were perfectly in consonance with his well-known traits of always wanting to be in command. A control freak. It is nay absurdity to expect a control freak to promote laissez-faire.

That brings me to the argument that I began with. Contrary to popular belief India does not have a party that truly promotes the ideas of free market. Our economic policy oscillates between decisions taken by either socialists or statists.  I for one do not think that markets can solve all problems. Free market principles fail (or at best provide inefficient corner solutions) in many aspects of society and the state does have a role to play there (for e.g. in education and healthcare). However, by and larger markets do work and wherever they do states should take a step back. It is indeed a tragedy that no party in India fully internalizes this philosophy. We are missing a centre right party and the Bharatiya Janata Party is certainly not one.