Hon. Minister ji, Sanjay Jaju ji, I have a very difficult job. You know, the job of a reforms historian is very close to that of a doctor performing an open heart surgery. You know, the body is still alive. The body, the machine outside is pumping and you are operating on the body. So you are writing about things that are still very close to they have happened. Reform history of India started in 1991 onwards. And to be able to do that and do that truthfully, without anybody questioning what you have said takes a great amount of skill and a lot of bravado, if I may say so. None of my works has ever been questioned by any part of the political spectrum. And I have privilege of having friends across all parties, whether it's the UPA bloc, NDA bloc, Trinamool, I mean, you name it and I have a great amount of affection and regard all across.

Unfortunately, it is also the job of a reforms historian to keep rekindling public memory because public memory is very short. So if you look at the period up to ’91 to 2010 in the Indian reform, it was a great period of reform. There was a great story, the country was taking great strides. Unfortunately, what we may have forgotten already was the kind of problem and the kind of issues the country was facing.

From 2010 to 2013 there was complete policy paralysis. We had these EGoMs—Empowered Group of Ministers—committees which I describe in my book as grey towers of power with no accountability. Every decision used to go there and get stuck. There was an entire narrative of corruption about India. Whether it was the Commonwealth Games, whether it was telecom, whether it was coal. It was very difficult to keep your head up and talk in community of nations because this whole story about corruption was so rampant.

The GDP had petered down, it had become very low. Inflation was high, interest rates are higher still, starving business out of crucial credit. There was joblessness. And those of you do not remember, we had this great person called Jairam Ramesh in the Environment Ministry followed by Jayanthi Natarajan. Between the two of them, probably they shaved off 2% of Indian GDP. The ICOR was in a bad shape. Incremental Capital-Output Ratio. So the country was in a situation of utter hopelessness.

And this is when somewhere towards the middle of 2013 rose a beacon of hope from Gujarat Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was not the prime ministerial candidate then. I recall, I have met him on several occasions. So this was one occasion when this whole idea of Modinomics was born. This was 17th of August 2013 at Mahatma Mandir in Gujarat. He had hosted a conference on Panchayati Raj and rural development.

And this is where he made this big statement about opening the statue, you know, making the Statue of Unity. And I saw the kind of response people gave when he said that I want something from you. And he said that, you know, you are all farmers and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel is a farmer and what I want from you is one implement and that iron will be melted and it will go into making the Statue of Unity. Modi. Modi. Modi. The whole hall, you know, I mean I can still feel the reverberation in my heart and in my body of that day. So much of connect he had with the people.

This was the time when he was not declared yet as a prime ministerial candidate. But there was a real fear in the opposition that he may be the person becoming the Prime Minister. So there was a whole narrative being made on Modi Ji and what possibly can go wrong with the country if he becomes the Prime Minister. So one very famous quote that was given those days was by a senior minister in the UPA government who said that the knowledge of Modi Ji on economics can fit behind a postage stamp.

So this was something that I brought up there. And Modi Ji asked me, he said Kochhar Ji Jante, knowledge of economics, pure economics, inclusive economics, inclusive governance. So ’91 onwards, what has happened in India while the economic reforms are delivered? Well, there have been close to zero governance reform and therefore the fruits have not reached the last mile. Then the growth is not inclusive. The growth will only be inclusive when governance reforms along with the economic reform.

And he said then what is to be done? So I sitting in front of him, I coined the term Modinomics and I said sir, I am going to write this book about Gujarat model and how you use inclusive economics and inclusive governance in Gujarat to make Gujarat what it is as a shining example of hope that the entire country is looking forward to.

It was probably one of the fastest written books. In the 17th of August we were discussing this and on 14th of February 2014 the book was released right here at the India Habitat Centre. Modi Ji was to come and release the book himself. Unfortunately there was a political emergency at the last minute he could not do that. So he requested Mr. Arun Jaitley who came at an extremely short notice to come and release this book right here in this hall which was Modinomics.

Ever since I have written that authoritative account I find that for people who are in the standard prototype or definitions of being economists or statisticians or administrators very seldom can understand what is Modinomics because it's not about any ism. It cuts across all these things. It's basically about common sense and it brings all these together things together to give maximum impact.

So on 15 August 2014, when Modi Ji launched Jandhan Yojana in September 2014, just a month later, I had written a book Defeating Poverty, Jandhan and Beyond. And I had said this one step of Jandhan Yojana and the MUDRA Yojana and other things that he's talking about is what is going to defeat poverty in India. And I read that laid down the entire roadmap. It is not as if Mr. Modi had told me what he's going to do. It is just that I do have that depth of understanding of that person's mindset having studied him for 25 years over which various rules.

Similarly in 2016 I came out with a book called Digital India Developed India which then panned out to. So the big difference that 2016 launch relaunch of Digital India made was that before 2016 Digital India was only about e-Governance and how to improve government efficiency. In 2016 it became about making India one of the largest digital economies. And the country is now well within. So the UPI revolution happened, the direct benefit transfers happened. So rest is all history. And my book will be available outside. I would pitch that you please buy a copy and read it because you will have all these details available there.

In 2016 MUDRA Yojana was launched. In 2017 there were questions about joblessness in India and that is where we came out with the first report on Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana and a job generative impact. How 5 crore 44 lakh jobs had been generated just over a period of two years because of the MUDRA Yojana alone.

In 2019 I wrote a book India 2030 when Modi Ji had given the vision of $10 trillion economy soon Covid hit so that had to be revised. So I came up with a book called India 2047 High Income with Equity. And we defined inclusive growth or India 2047 as in India where there is growth which is job generative, it is spatially dispersed, it is equitable and it is sustainable.

In 2024 elections happened and as the want of opposition is again big question marks on job creation. Now this obsession with formal jobs which is factories and shops and offices has to end. I think if we had continued with that obsession under Modi Ji's period. By the end of 2014 we were already facing a crisis of livelihoods in India. So the focus of Modi Ji schemes was on livelihoods at the least quality, life, education, health, clean cooking, fuel, ponche. So he had very basic priorities which was the unfinished agenda since independence which he is trying to now finish.

So in 2024 when the elections there was this big debate about lack of jobs and the opposition was creating a lot of noise I think out came my report which Modi Ji reported, quoted five times across media on how so many jobs have been created due to centrally sponsored schemes as well as Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana.

And finally we are today when he has finished 25 years in public service, the biggest tribute that I could give to him was to bring together this work. So the fastest book written earlier was Modinomics. Now the fastest book written is Modinomics Journey of Inclusive Growth. The job was easy for me to finish in four months because I had already written six books on the subject and I had studied it across the country.

And not only had studied Modinomics, I had talked to hundreds and hundreds of people across various states of India documenting how which Yojana changed their life. And this book is interspersed with all those anecdotes. So they are real people, real Indians whose lives got changed in this journey of inclusive growth.

God's blessings be added to Modi Ji's work. And I hope to see a Viksit Bharat along with all of you together by 2047. If not faster. Thank you very much.

Participants at the Digital Assets of India: Sovereignty and Security