Charity for votes

B K Karkra
The above parody on a Shakespearean lament would perhaps starkly explain the present political situation in our country. Some nine years back, when the N.D.A. Government opted for early polls in their over confidence, India was not exactly shining; but the things were not all that badly off either. Our economy had a distance to cover alright, but it seemed to be on the roll. The world had just started taking note of India and was keen to do business with us. Our foreign exchange reserves had risen to a comfortable level and were still gradually building up. There was thus hope in the air that India would also count for something soon.
All this breeze of confidence has since blown over. The power-focused politics of the U.P.A. has dealt a body blow to our economics and has left it gasping for breath. Rattan Tata, a cult figure in our industry, is right when he says that our ‘country has lost the confidence of the world’. Our economy, though not in doldrums yet, has considerably weakened. There is some risk of our sovereign credit ratings being downgraded, as our persistent current account deficit may soon start eating in to our foreign exchange reserves. Economic mismanagement, policy flip-flops, scams and particularly the politics of charity have all but sucked the country of her dream and driven us to state of near despondency.
The saddest part of it is that all this has happened when quite a few brilliant economic brains are available to the ruling dispensation at its helm. But, of what use are these brains, if these are not allowed to be used? The best economic talent of the country who pulled her out from a state of near bankruptcy in 1991, has  fallen to the lure of history by agreeing to be a proxy prime minister, thereby lending credence to the maxim that the desire for fame is the last infirmity of a noble soul.
The primary reason for this sorry state of affairs is the extra-constitutional power centre that has opened office in the backyard of the government. The founding fathers of our statute never envisaged such a system. This contains all the bacteria of a power-without-responsibility situation in a most virulent form. This caucus around Sonia is least interested in sound governance and is merely churning out profligate schemes to garner votes. Those in the government seem to have been just told to forget about governing and somehow muster money for implementing these weird ideas by scrounging here and there. The frequent threats of investigations and stiffening of rules to milk taxes has exasperated the foreign as well as the domestic investors alike.
Let us understand the situation this way. It is said that once Queen Victoria had quite a confrontation with her prime minister and she, in her exasperation, haughtily reminded him that he was talking to the queen of England. The prime minister is believed to have retorted respectfully that her majesty also should not forget that she was speaking to the people of England.  Our present prime minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, can hardly afford to use this sort of language. He is after all no more than a nominee of Sonia who alone could claim to reflect the will of Indian people on the basis of the last two general elections. It is a sad situation, indeed. Left to himself Dr. Manmohan Singh can still work wonders for our economy. He, however, is not a free man.
Now, who has brought about this situation? Let us face the fact: it is we, the people of India ourselves. We see Jawahar Lal Nehru not as a great patriot, statesman and a visionary, but as the king of India. We have a propensity to worship royalty.  Sure, Sonia has proved to be an adorable and ideal ‘bahu’ in the finest traditions of India. But, what are her credentials for Governing us?  Why  could we not instead bring the Congress to power in the name of Dr. Manmohan Singh? Wordsworth once said, “Much it grieved my heart to think what man has made of man”. I shall say in the same vein that it pains my heart to think what Indians have made of India.
It does tremendous credit to Chidambram that he craftily sucked over one lakh crore rupees from our pockets so painlessly in form of service tax. This sizeable money in the state coffers could have done a world of good to the Indian economy and taken the country galloping forward. What has happened instead is that the caucus around Sonia wasted twice that much amount in wasteful schemes which they thought would perpetually keep them in power. They seem to have forgotten that those who thought of creating artificial waves among the voters in the past have often ended up eating humble pie.
Waiving some loans selectively in the areas where the farmers have suffered drought or floods etc., with the genuine aim of ameliorating their distress, makes sense. Indiscriminate waiving of loans to buy votes puts wrong ideas in the borrowing heads. They develop a tendency to withhold repayments in the hope that their loans would after all be waived off on some election eve. A good portion of the loan amount is pinched by corrupt bank managers, block officials and the sarpanches etc. Thus, all this besides shaking the sanctity of the banking system also has the effect of soiling the moral fabric of the country.
The rural employment scheme was certainly a good idea. The money spent on such a programme after all does create some national wealth. But even in this area, better results could have been achieved by launching some well monitored labour-intensive development schemes in the rural regions, involving and encouraging our public spirited entrepreneurs also. That way the state would have got much more for its money through meaningful asset creation, while generating employment at the same time.
The recently launched food security scheme is simply an economic disaster. Ways and means, of course, need to be found to ensure that the food grains do not rot in our granaries. Rather than letting these rot, it would be certainly better to dispose these off in time at some loss. But distributing grain to the two-third of our population through the state machinery that is both corrupt and inefficient, is simply asking for trouble. Once such a populist measure gets enacted, it becomes difficult for even the future governments to throw it out.  It is sad that the present dispensation has gone headlong into it knowing well that only around seventeen paise worth of this charity out of a rupee would ultimately reach the target population.
The opposition parties have also failed to nip the silly idea in bud, for fear of losing on the popular vote, though everybody knows that it is ultimately going to end in to an economic earthquake in the country.  One does not have to be an economist to understand that our already tottering economy would never be able to feed eighty two crore mouths at state cost. Similarly one does not have to be an astrologer either to predict that the biggest scam of our history is just round the corner, though one may get dubbed as a prophet of doom for this prediction at the moment. Votes are, no doubt, the bread and butter of the politicians in a democracy. Populism, to a degree, could, therefore, be overlooked, but going overboard for votes and putting the future of the country at stake in this manner is inexcusable.
(The author is former Commandant)

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