The Glue Without A Clue

The Glue Without A Clue

The bad news on the economic front keeps rolling out like a juggernaut and goes down the drain, as just so much waste. And alongside are some appraisals of Mrs. Sonia Gandhi’s 15 years at the head of the Congress Party, both from home and abroad.

Not one assessment, apart from the hagiographies from Congress courtiers and what the press call “stooges”, have anything particularly nice to say.

They talk of her peculiar exercise of supreme power without responsibility. They plainly say that Mrs. Gandhi is the most powerful person in India, and the prime minister is not.

In the end, the best achievement of the Congress President is that she provides the “glue” that keeps the Congress from splitting up into many self-important pieces. At least this is the consensus of the commentary.

But the fact is, the now 66 year old “High Command” rules both the Party and the Government on a de-facto basis. So much so, that 80 year old Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, divested of any real responsibility for his actions and pronouncements, has indicated he might be up for a third term beyond 2014, if the opportunity presents itself.  

But Mrs. Gandhi has already had quite an innings. From the famed “renunciation” of the prime ministership in 2004, to the recent upliftment of her son to the Vice Presidency of the Party, she has kept the primacy of the Gandhi family intact.

But over the last three years or so, there has been a huge imbalance between emphasis on expenditure and income. The expenditure is designed to procure votes from the poor for the Congress Party, using the machinery and money of the Government. This may not be right ethically, but it has been greatly, and irresponsibly, enhanced.

The cavalier attitude to the income of the Government though is so prominent, that that the entire emphasis of the Finance Ministry and the RBI has been to try and contain inflation rather than promote growth.  

First class economists and strategists have had to suspend judgement and toe the High Command’s line in this regard.

Mrs. Gandhi not only runs the Party in terms of every appointment, every “ticket”, every shuffle and sacking, all without accountability, but also dictates Government policy via the National Advisory Council she chairs.

And this means dictation to the prime minister and the cabinet with ideas developed by a band of ultra-leftists that constitute the NAC on a nominated basis.

And her son, Mr. Rahul Gandhi, an avowed believer  in  “meritocracy”, has recently indicated he will accept both the Prime Minister’s job and that of the Party President, as it is no longer a good idea to have two centres of power. His spokesperson Mr. Digvijay Singh has just played cat’s paw in this regard.

But then, as the outspoken Justice Katju, the maverick Chairman of the Press Council and former Supreme Court judge says, democracy has been imposed on a feudal society here, and has ended up, he implied, a bit of a farce. He says he does not vote personally because others vote their caste etc. just like so many “sheep”.

And hurrah, Rahul Gandhi, a man who has hardly ever addressed a press conference, plans to speak to the business classes at CII shortly. We will, at last, possibly hear his thoughts on business and industry. Let us hope they are serious thoughts though, because Mr. Gandhi does like to keep it  as simple as possible.

The first family of the UPA, including contributions to most songs from sister Priyanka and bro-in-law  Robert Vadra, has nevertheless ruled, in  the complete sense of the word, during the last nine plus years.

The “family” has even micro-managed many Government decisions, but always, like Polonius, from behind the arras, in a manner that subverts the very meaning of transparency and democracy.

It is a style of functioning that  gives illustration to Justice Katju’s meaning of feudal, even imperial, with an army of courtiers ready to jump on any criticism of this insult to the intent of the Indian Constitution.

Meanwhile back in “Dole Raj”, no facts are allowed to interfere with the roll-out. MGNREGA which has consumed Rs. 170,000 crores and counting since inception in 2009, is a mess; with wages paid to poor people accounting for only 20% of this sum. All the rest has gone to leakages, corruption and middle men.

We now  have the Food Bill and the Homestead Act waiting in the wings, with the former already passed by the rubber-stamp of a Cabinet. In Congress circles, it is accepted MGNREGA won the 2009 elections for UPA II, and so, these two new babies are expected to deliver a third consecutive term.

This country is being driven into becoming a bankrupt “banana republic” just as Vadra said; with high-spending welfare policies that refuse to worry about fiscal responsibility. The single minded zeal to achieve re-election is all.

This glue does not brook criticism. And the script says that the economy is about to get better, has bottomed out and will be back up to 8 or 9% per annum in growth within another couple of years.

The idea is to appear to spend plentifully on the poor, those vividly described “mango people”, and pocket the electoral payoff. If this fails to materialise, and things actually go from bad to worse in the next couple of years, then it is due to the incompetence of the successor Government.

There will be a tussle, in the coming days, between this welfare based socialist election campaign, and the development economics of the challenger from Gujarat.

May the good glue stick and the bad one come unstuck.

(945 words)

March 31^st, 2013

Gautam Mukherjee