GUJARAT MODEL IN a recent article, Surjit Bhalla (Indian Express April 17, 2014) has made a strong pitch for the Gujarat model of development by countering the charge that the state has poor social indicators. He argues that the Modi government has performed better than all other states with high economic growth rates with respect to education and health. This argument is largely based on manipulated facts and seeks to mislead the voters at a time when Gujarat is about to go to the polls in the current general election. It also shows that sections of the right wing corporate backed intelligentsia are now waking up to sustained criticism of the social and political impact of the much taunted ‘Gujarat model.’ Incidentally, the article comes at a time when a candidate from the BJP has argued that Modi’s critics have no place in India and should go to ‘Pakistan.’ This article puts the record straight in order to show that the rallying of the right wing intelligentsia behind the corporate led campaign of the BJP can only be done my manipulating real facts. One of the key indicators highlighted by Bhalla in his article is the sex ratio in Gujarat. Bhalla writes that “birth statistics indicate that the lot of the girl child has improved considerably in Gujarat between 2001 and 2011. The increase is of 72 points, second only to the increase in Himachal Pradesh.” But this claim is factually wrong, as we can see from the comparative statistics of the Census of 2001 and 2011. As the Census of 2011 showed, the decadal growth of the female population in rural Gujarat was 9.37 percent, much lower than the all-India average of 12.25 percent. On the contrary, the growth rate of urban female population was higher (35.78 percent) than the all-India of 33.73 percent. However, it is also significant that the urban sex ratio in Gujarat was 880, which is significantly lower than the all-India sex ratio of 926 for urban areas. It is also important to note that the over all sex ratio of Gujarat fell from 921 to 918 in the last decade under Modi’s rule, and this is much lower than the all-India sex ratio of 940. As far as the child sex ratio (0-6 years) is concerned, Bhalla claims that Gujarat improved by 72 points in the last decade. But this claim is fallacious, since the Census of India 2011 shows that the child sex ratio of Gujarat has improved by only three points from 883 to 886 in the last decade. However, even this figure is much lower than the all-India child sex ratio of 914 in the same period. MISINFORMATION ON EDUCATION The other major claim of the article is in relation to the performance of Gujarat in the sphere of education. The article claims that the improvement in Gujarat is incomparable with other high growth states like (e.g. Tamilnadu, Himachal Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh) which started at a higher threshold. Since no data are presented on education, it is worth recording that according to the District Information on School Education (as of 2011), the state has one of the worst enrolment rates in the country. While at the lower primary level (Class 1-5) the enrolment rate is 85.73 percent, it plummeted to 48.77 percent at the upper primary level and this is significantly lower than the all-India rate of 61.82 percent. Even states such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have performed better than Gujarat at the upper primary level. Bhalla, however, conveniently ignores the issue of dropouts especially after the primary stage. According to the school education database, Gujarat has a higher dropout rate than most other Indian states. While dropout rates at the lower primary level are not high, it is at the upper primary level that most of the damage is being done. At this level the dropout rate is 29.33 percent, a figure that is better than that of the state of Karnataka only and much higher than the all-India average of 9.08 percent. An analysis of the school statistics suggests that the Gujarat government has tried to cover up the high dropout rates at the lower primary level by hiding it under the guise of ‘repetition rate.’ The children who are potential dropouts but re-enrolled in the same class in the second year are counted under the repetition rate. This rate is a whopping 6.67 percent for Gujarat in 2011, as against the all-India average of 3.17 percent. DISCRIMINATION IN ACCESS TO BASIC AMENITIES A third aspect that Bhalla’s article deals with is the question of water, sanitation and other basic amenities. The article claims that 97 percent of Gujarat gets clean drinking water and sanitation. But this figure is highly exaggerated and is contradicted by the Census figures which show that more than 40 percent of the people in rural Gujarat get no potable water and are outside the purview of the bulk supply pipeline system. Further, the access to basic amenities is not uniform in all regions. A survey by Jan Vikas of 63 Muslim concentrated areas in the state has showed that 61 of these areas did not have proper sanitation facilities. The situation was so bad that during the monsoons women found it difficult to even go to the toilets. Still further, only 49 out of the 63 areas surveyed received drinking water; 26 of these received water from the village panchayat, 16 from municipalities, 5 from private suppliers and only 2 from the Gujarat state water supply board. The rest of the 14 areas have no regular access to drinking water. Also, as per the survey, only 23 percent of the Muslim concentrated areas had underground drainage and 50 percent received regular water supply. The study further notes that only 25 percent of these areas have access to primary health, and that most Muslim children are denied admission in private schools. This observation is significant in the wake of the fact that the enrolments in government schools is steadily declining because of the public private model pursued by the Modi government. It should be noted that the facts mentioned above have been used to demystify the so called Gujarat Model by many forums of secular intellectuals and democratic mass organisations and groups. This sustained campaign has been one of the counters to the corporate media’s attempt to project Modi as the alternative. In order to prevent the growing influence of this sustained secular campaign, a desperate BJP has launched a counter attack by mobilising the intellectuals of the right wing. The need therefore is to make the people aware that, historically, opportunist right wing intelligentsia has consolidated itself behind the fascist forces. It is not a mere coincidence that the staunch defenders and loud votaries of neo-liberal policies of the UPA are now queuing up behind their new found ‘messiah’ of corporate capital and neo-liberalism. The process of demystification of the Gujarat model needs to be intensified through sustained mass campaigns in order to alert the people of the country and of Gujarat in particular.