Amulya Ganguli
If Manmohan Singh succeeds in pushing through the economic reforms without any rollbacks, which used to be the Congress’s customary pusillanimous response to the tantrums of friends and foes, then there is little doubt that his prestige will soar. From being derided as an “underachiever” and a “tragic figure,” he will emerge as a reformer par excellence who breathed new life into India’s success story.
What is more, he will earn all the plaudits this time unlike 1991, when the then prime minister, Narasimha Rao, was seen as the prime mover, while Manmohan Singh was no more than an implementer as finance minister. Now, the applause for him from his well-wishers will be louder because he will be seen to have had to fight a lone battle with only a few major supporters in the party and government.
On the question of the nuclear deal, too, Manmohan Singh was on his own, so much so that he once virtually gave up the fight when Sonia Gandhi said that the communists had a point in their opposition. Ultimately, it was apparently Rahul Gandhi’s support for the deal, which enabled the prime minister to take the risk of facing a no-confidence motion in parliament, though the victory was tainted by the allegations of money changing hands.
Arguably, Rahul’s behind-the-scene support may have bolstered Manmohan Singh’s courage this time, too, considering that the heir-apparent had backed FDI in retail at a public meeting in UP during his election campaign. Otherwise, it is unlikely that his party was fully behind him. In fact, it is only now after this latest major push towards reforms that the Congress may slowly shed its Nehruvian fads about socialism, as manifested in the party’s 1955 resolution to introduce a “socialistic pattern of society” in India.
It is also no secret that the introduction of reforms in 1991 was not a well-thought-out move, but a hasty, unavoidable response to a balance of payments crisis. Even after the crisis was overcome, the Congress continued to be uneasy about the deregulation and ascribed its defeat in 1996 to the reforms. For years afterwards, the reforms were not only described as pro-rich, but also especially hurtful to the poor. It is a propaganda that is now carried on mainly by the Left and the BJP – the familiar communist-communalist combine – with the added jibe that it isn’t so much the rich in India who benefit as the foreign multinationals.
The strength of the Congress’s ‘socialist’ component can be gauged from the fact that the party’s conclave in Shimla prior to the 2004 elections called for the introduction of job reservations in the private sector. The suggestion was not unlike the question posed to Morarji Desai in 1977, after the Janata Party’s victory about nationalizing the companies run by the Tatas. Few will doubt that India today has changed from those antediluvian periods.
Even then, at least one member of the National Advisory Council led by Sonia Gandhi ascribed the Congress’s 2009 victory not to the rising growth rates or the nuclear deal, but to the profligate populist measures like the rural employment scheme. His prescription, therefore, for the party’s success in the next general election was the implementation of the food security bill, which envisages an expenditure of Rs one lakh crore.
Thankfully, the government has turned away from such starry-eyed perceptions and reposed its faith on growth rates – the bugbear of socialists – in the belief that that the common man is not interested in doles and handouts from a paternalistic, mai-baap sarkar, but in an expansion of opportunities in the business and service sectors via a buoyant economy. One reason why the BJP, which is supposedly a right-wing party although its primary image is that of a communal outfit, is so upset about the latest initiatives on reforms is not because its heart is bleeding for the aam admi, but because it suspects that Manmohan Singh has found the road to success in 2014.
Otherwise, it might have been expected to extend at least qualified support to the prime minister.
As for the Congress, the farewell to Nehruvian socialism, as also to non-alignment, heralds the end of an era and the entry of the pragmatists of the present-day world. There was a time when Nehru led this forward march, as when he described the dams and industries as the temples of modern India. Unfortunately, Sonia Gandhi’s political apprenticeship under Indira has made her too much of a votary of the former prime minister’s faux socialism. One hopes that Rahul will back the present prime minister and steer clear of his family’s outdated pseudo-Gandhian ideals. (IPA)
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