As India steps into the year 2026, Union Minister Hardeep S Puri has issued a clarion call for a more disciplined and responsible public discourse. In a detailed opinion piece, the Minister for Petroleum & Natural Gas argues that while scrutiny and sharp criticism are essential for a vibrant democracy, the current quality of argument often falls short, trading evidence for insinuation and weakening the very institutions driving change.
The Peril of Pessimism: How Cynicism Undermines Reform
Puri identifies a troubling trend in recent commentary, where doubt is marketed as sophistication. This genre, he contends, reduces the complex work of reform to a caricature, treating every imperfect transition as proof of permanent failure. He warns that this posture erodes trust in national statistics and markets, fosters fatalism among entrepreneurs, and provides external actors with a ready-made script to pressure India in international negotiations.
The Minister expresses particular concern over eminent professionals with strong credentials resorting to such tactics, some of whom are now building careers on criticizing the nation they once anchored their identity in. He challenges the charge that India's datasets are uniquely unreliable, pointing to transformative systemic changes.
Data-Driven Defence: The Verifiable Foundations of Progress
Puri presents a battery of data to counter narratives of failure, emphasizing the creation of large, auditable systems. He highlights that the Goods and Services Tax (GST) established a national invoice trail and compliance culture absent a decade ago. Similarly, the digital payments revolution, led by UPI, has created another massive audit footprint. In November 2025 alone, UPI recorded 20 billion transactions worth over Rs 26 lakh crore.
On welfare and inclusion, the Minister cites NITI Aayog's National Multidimensional Poverty Index, which shows that nearly 24 crore Indians moved out of multidimensional poverty between 2013-14 and 2022-23. The Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) system, with cumulative transfers crossing Rs 45 lakh crore in 2025 and savings of over Rs 3.5 lakh crore from reduced leakage, exemplifies tightened delivery.
Financial discipline reforms have shown clear results, with the gross non-performing asset (NPA) ratio of scheduled commercial banks plummeting to 2.1% in 2025 from about 11.2% in 2018. "When critics say the state cannot reform, this quiet turnaround is the first answer," Puri asserts.
Building at Scale: Manufacturing, Exports, and Federal Resilience
Addressing the jibe that India cannot build at scale, the Minister points to the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes. Realised investment has crossed Rs 2 lakh crore across 14 sectors, generating employment for over 12 lakh people. The electronics sector is a standout, with production hitting Rs 11 lakh crore in 2024-25 and mobile phone exports reaching about Rs 2 lakh crore.
India's total exports of goods and services achieved an all-time high of over $825 billion in 2024-25, building trade leverage through performance, not despair. Puri notes that competitiveness stems from cumulative improvements in infrastructure, logistics, and administrative reform.
He also defends the adaptive nature of Indian federalism, noting that states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan have drawn investment through better governance. The Centre supports this by building national platforms for states to utilize and by making reform data transparent for public scrutiny.
A Call for Value-Creating Critique in 2026
Invoking philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche's idea that a thinker must create values that help societies live and improve, Puri argues that India has chosen the harder path of execution. The results, he states, are now being audited in numbers and felt in households through schemes like Jal Jeevan Mission (12.5 crore rural tap connections), Ayushman Bharat (over 42 crore PM-JAY cards), and PM Ujjwala Yojana (over 10 crore LPG connections).
Puri's core message for 2026 is a demand for criticism that improves policy, not commentary that undermines confidence for applause. He concludes that upholding this standard is crucial to protecting ongoing reforms, securing investment, and preserving democratic choice at home. India's story, he reminds readers, is far from finished and will always invite argument—but the quality of that argument will determine the nation's trajectory.
