One for the Money, Two
for the Show
The belated Congress/UPA boosting of the Reforms process,
reiterated at their show-of-strength
rally in Delhi and bussed in Chintan Baithak at Suraj Kund, Haryana,
needs to be unequivocally welcomed.
It may have come against the threat of India being
down-graded to “junk” investment status by the international rating agencies,
making our international borrowings costlier in the event, and promising to dry
up the relatively meagre investment funds flow. But at least it shook the
Government out of its neo-socialist reverie even if the grim statistics did not.
There is a definite silver lining to the no-nonsense
development. It is a truism after all, that India takes perverse pleasure in
being at least fifty years behind even featherweight countries in terms of
development. Thank God therefore for the presumed objectiveness and
incorruptibility of the rating agencies!
Building protectionist barriers are just postponement of the
inevitable. Chinese goods, for example, are ubiquitous in Indian markets and
are being lapped up enthusiastically by a public that finds them cheaper and
better. This competitiveness cannot be legislated away.
The fact is, better goods at cheaper prices are people
friendly. Even goods that may not last, but have fancier bells and whistles at
a cheaper price, are perceived to be worth the money. And none of us care where
it comes from ideologically.
Besides, every internationally designed garment is tailored
in China and very well at that. One is forced to acknowledge the powerhouse of
manufacturing that China has become. And no protectionism steeped in wishful
thinking can reverse such tides. And this is without reference to the project-execution
capabilities and other such formidable
Chinese strengths.
But yes, there is a need for greater inclusiveness in our
progress. Reform cannot be allowed to lead to19th century robber-baronism.
Though our scam-a-day reality does not need reform to flourish anyway! Still,
it is paranoid to be suspicious of foreigners, their capital, and know-how. We
need instead less lip-service and more action on the ground.
The much vilified Gujarat administration for example,
routinely labelled communal, yet is reported to have the largest number of
Muslim policemen in comparison with any other state!
The routine cheating of hearts in the name of the poor, the
minorities, the ordinary citizen, has to be replaced with a true spirit of
public service. Activism from Anna Hazare and his cohorts, and Arvind Kejriwal
and his, only underscores the notion that the political classes have abdicated
this space - to them and others, like the RTI based activists, the Swamis and
Babas etc.
This is a time of shifting sands. And this reality,
juxtaposed with the recent reports that India will become the world’s biggest
economy by 2060, surpassing that of China, even as our per capita will be one
of the lowest. This is the real stuff of Chintan
Baithaks to come.
Will we grow so big because of the low cost economy fuelled
by millions of newly born poor people? Or will we dominate the world economy
because our consumption and demand per capita will drive growth at over 5% per
annum compounded? Or does the credit go to the improved infrastructure to come
that will help sustain a high level of GDP growth?
And socially, are we going to polarise between a few rich
people with the ability to buy endlessly and millions of poor people with
little or no purchasing power? Or will it be a relative thing all the way up
and down the pyramid?
Many large business houses making cars and FMCG today are
busy catering to the “sachet” market on the assumption that one can grow very
wealthy in India selling to the poor. We may be quasi-socialists as yet, but
are still the envy of the ageing and shrinking populations of capitalist Europe
and even China. Our very failure at draconian population control, the storied “do ya teen bus”, may be our White
Knight.
Today, looking back to the
extensive population control campaign of the Seventies, most families indeed
have two or three children; but then the base line has expanded to nearly 1.25
billion people.
Coming back to the crossroad in 2012, raising a bogey
against the wheels of progress, CPI(M) or TMC style, against globalisation and
foreign direct investment as an ideological aversion amounting to anathema, is
purely negative milking of a fear.
The fear-mongering is that the aam aadmi will be badly affected by what will bring modernisation,
efficiency, quality-boosting and progress. And that being linked to the global
economy is to sink with it. There is no hope in the Leftist mind that the
Western economies will ever revive from their excesses and no recognition of
business or economic cycles.
This self righteous but actually spurious protest may well
turn out to be the theme in the coming session of parliament as well. This, and
the thundering against the wall of corruption of tsunami proportions threatening to engulf us.
But preventing parliament from functioning does nothing to
cover the principal Opposition, the BJP, in glory either. The aam aadmi ends up
paying to witness a boorish circus time after time with nothing to show for
it. This will be the third session in a row, if it too is stymied.
And the public can be forgiven for being confused about what
the political Right stands for economically. After all, it keeps making common
cause with the radical Left whenever it suits them. It also accuses the
Government of rampant corruption while stubbornly refusing to measure itself against
the same yardstick. Messrs. Jethmalani, both father and son, eminent lawyers
and BJP leaders that they are, don’t seem to be making a dent.
Besides there is more, the size of a herd of elephants in
the roomy chambers of the Lok Sabha. The puerile attitude of painting Maoists
as disgruntled patriots for example. Old assumptions like the inviolability of
treaties with the State of Jammu and Kashmir which need to be urgently abrogated.
And why wait when even political dynasts from that state call India the “Enemy”?
No country should tolerate such challenges to its
sovereignty without revisiting its date-expired much too liberal premises. Why is
this one quasi-state allowed its outrageous privileges in 2012, and why is the
rest of India paying for them in money and blood?
And this, when every other constituency, such as the Princes,
the private banks/ insurance companies, the zamindars,
etc. promised, in 1947, Government protection till the end of the republic, has been ruthlessly ravaged by the state.
We have just come through yet another “festival of lights”. So
when oh when do we start vanquishing the darkness?
(1,102 words)
13th
November 2012, Diwali
Gautam Mukherjee
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