From Nehru's Idealism to Modi's Concrete Raj

 

The transformation of the Indian state under Narendra Modi has often been narrated in terms of strong leadership, decisive governance, and an unrelenting emphasis on development. Development being a synonym for civil engineering projects, showcased in glossy WhatsApp forwards and jarring emotional endorsements by nobodies.

Yet what has emerged over the past decade is less a model of sustainable development than what can be described as the “Contractor State”: a polity where monumental construction projects, executed with little public scrutiny, have replaced democratic debate as the primary mode of statecraft. In Modi’s vision, the nation’s destiny is equated with the building of imposing physical structures, even as institutional and ecological foundations are steadily weakened.

The Central Vista redevelopment project and the construction of a new Parliament epitomize this logic. The official justification—that the old Parliament was structurally inadequate and technologically obsolete—rings hollow when viewed against global precedents. Westminster has housed the British Parliament for over eight centuries, even as it presided over an empire on which the sun never set; the U.S. Capitol, more than two centuries old, continues to serve as the seat of American democracy. India’s decision to replace its Parliament was therefore less about necessity than about symbolism. Modi sought to sever ties with the Nehruvian and Ambedkarite legacies embodied in the old building, replacing them with a monumental structure inaugurated through Hindu rituals and infused with the imagery of civilizational rebirth. Yet, what the new Parliament lacks most is the prime minister himself: he makes token appearances, rarely answers parliamentary questions, and delivers monologues heavy on chest-thumping and blame-shifting. Small wonder, then, that The Telegraph in Calcutta captured his speech with the headline: “Bla, Bla, Bla.”

This preference for spectacle over substance becomes clear when one considers the democratic deficit in the project’s execution. Parliamentary debate sanctioning the expenditure bamboozled; no meaningful environmental assessment was conducted; public consultations were conspicuously absent. Instead, the project was pushed through by executive fiat, with contractors and favoured firms executing the vision. In effect, India was presented with a fait accompli. The space of democratic contestation was replaced by the logic of the nation building.

If the new Parliament symbolizes this tendency at the institutional level, the ecological disaster unfolding in Joshimath represents its catastrophic consequences in India’s fragile landscapes. Joshimath’s sinking houses and fractured roads are not aberrations; they are the predictable outcome of decades of reckless construction in the Himalayas, now accelerated under Modi’s push for the Char Dham road project and hydroelectric tunnels. Scientific warnings that the Himalayas are ecologically fragile and prone to subsidence were ignored, as the imperatives of religious tourism and political spectacle overrode environmental prudence. For a few weeks in 2023, Joshimath dominated headlines. But with a total media embargo, the plight of its residents receded from the national conversation. Today, the crisis remains unresolved and largely forgotten—a telling illustration of how the Contractor State manufactures amnesia, erasing inconvenient conversations once the next project is unveiled.

The story does not end in Uttarakhand. Across India, similar patterns unfold. Forest lands in central India are routinely diverted for mining, with groups like the Adani conglomerate emerging as the prime beneficiaries. This is not incidental. It reflects a deeper political economy where crony capitalists are woven into the state’s project of monumental development. What was once the “license-permit raj” of Nehruvian socialism has now been replaced by a “concession-contract raj,” where large corporations receive privileged access to natural resources in the name of nation-building. The result is the dispossession of tribal communities, the devastation of ecologies, and the steady narrowing of democratic oversight.

The Andaman and Nicobar islands serve as another frontier of this imagination. Here, Modi’s vision of transforming the archipelago into a “new Singapore” and launching palm oil plantations in Nicobar reveals the contradictions of the Contractor State. The Andamans and Nicobars are not empty spaces waiting for development. They are ecologically fragile zones with unique biodiversity and home to indigenous communities whose lives and cultures are inseparable from their environment. By recasting them as blank slates for urban ambition and agribusiness, the state enacts a form of internal colonialism—displacing both ecology and people in pursuit of an imagined modernity.

The deeper tragedy is that this relentless pursuit of monumental construction does little to address India’s pressing developmental challenges. Public health systems remain fragile, schools chronically underfunded, and agriculture mired in crisis. These domains lack the photogenic appeal of flyovers, statues, or new parliaments; they offer no grand inaugurations or live telecasts. And so they languish, while the nation’s attention is drawn to the latest edifice. Public policy is reduced to jumlas, and television debates about them devolve into noise rather than meaningful information.

Ultimately, the question is not whether the new Parliament building is structurally sound, or whether highways in the Himalayas can be engineered more safely. The question is whether a state that prioritizes monuments over institutions, and contractors over citizens, can sustain the ecological and democratic foundations of the Republic. From Delhi to Joshimath, from Chhattisgarh’s forests to the Nicobar islands, the answer appears increasingly clear. A politics of monumentality, fueled by cronyism and insulated from scrutiny, is hollowing out India’s democracy even as it reshapes its skylines.

Gandhi once warned, “If India imitates the West, we will strip the earth like a locust.” Modi’s obsession with monumental projects and the dream of building a “new Singapore” reveals precisely this imitation—an attachment to a bygone era when nations flaunted their modernity through concrete and glass. But in today’s age of hyper-communication, where global influence is exercised through ideas, technology, and networks rather than sheer physical grandeur, such aspirations feel anachronistic. The first step in confronting the climate crisis is prudence: questioning whether each new project is truly necessary, and recognizing that sustainability lies not in endless construction but in conserving resources, strengthening communities, and reimagining growth. To continue chasing vanity projects is to ignore both Gandhi’s wisdom and the planet’s warnings.

Unless there is a reorientation away from this contractor logic—toward ecological prudence, democratic consultation, and investment in people rather than monuments—India risks inheriting a legacy of grand buildings standing amidst fractured communities, degraded ecologies, and eroded democratic norms. The foundations of a republic, unlike those of a monument, cannot be laid in concrete alone.

https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/the-contractor-state/