Men, Matters & Memories
M L Kotru
Call it a quirk of Indian politics if you like, but the fact remains that, as of now, opposition parties seem to have a vested interest in the sound health of Dr. Manmohan Singh and his Government. They are so uncertain of the present or of the immediate future that they would very much like the Manmohan Singh government to continue until they are able to consolidate their strength.
Right now there is a general realization that unless the situation changes radically, there is no hope of this country acquiring a genuine two or three-party system. The ‘Khichri’ at the Centre, repeated very largely in the States as well, must for the present, continue to be the lot of the country.
Whatever their anger, annoyance or inconvenience the people may not want to do anything that rocks the Manmohan Singh boat until they are assured of the existence of a viable alternative. The Bharatiya Janata Party’s desperate attempts to project itself as a viable alternative, perhaps with a newer NDA in tow, seems unlikely to see fruition. The best bet, therefore, for the parties may be to bide time and meanwhile consolidate their position.
There is an intimate relationship between politics and astrology in this country, and there is no dearth of forecasts about what would happen to the UPA Government and when, but the more rational politicians seem to concede that there is nothing to suggest that its term of five years would get short-circuited which as the Congress party is reassured is still a year away. Wait for the magic wand that will in all probability put the opposition parties where they belong: out of office. This may be wishful thinking on the part of those who have put their eggs in the Gandhi parivar basket – what with Rahul Gandhi promising not to marry to put an end to the dynasty theory – and are indeed thinking of a return to power.
What about developments in the States with the mother party’s fortunes looking downwards, the numberless scams with many more threatening to come to light, the farmers’ agitations, the dissatisfaction with the law and order, rape at the top of the list, rising prices and growing disenchantment with the Gandhis and their party?. Add to these, movements like the one led by Anna Hazare and his former followers including Arvind Kejriwal. And taking on from Hazare, there are movements not organized by political parties which are hard to control because of the absence of disciplined cadres.
There are enough indications that agitations, some of them being old caste-based or the one in Telengana or by the farmers of Maharashtra, are set to spread, causing multiple problems for the Central and local governments which may affect the fate of one State government or another.
The Manmohan Singh Government did during the last few months show greater dispatch in trying to undo the damage which it itself had done to the economy – a part no doubt of the world economic meltdown – via some course correction but given the gloomy economic growth rate it may only do more harm than good. The economists and the corporates may have hailed the decision to unwind the regime of subsidies of the past few decades, but so far as amelioration of the lot of the people goes it is unable to do anything to control inflation triggered among other things by depleting foreign reserves and the economic slump accompanied by rising oil prices.
And since oil prices will keep rising the Manmohan Singh Government has not much manoeuverability. The stark reality though is that it singularly failed in containing the price spiral.
Administratively, the UPA Government is on a worse wicket and there seems to be a great dearth of talent around the ageing Prime Minister. There is little evidence of mature decisions or even of the existence of high-powered think tanks unless we are asked to believe that the huge toothless UPA Chairman’s advisory committee is doing the job; it rarely meets. Perhaps not without reason, there is a growing tendency to blame all policy failures on the international economic slump. Maybe because the situation borders on the grim and some of the problems are at the moment insoluble, there is a tendency both in the ruling party and the Opposition to take a long-term, almost historical view of things and derive solace from it.
The ruling party would seem to be drawing consolation from the fact that it has managed to keep a country larger than Europe together in spite of numerous threats, is by itself an achievement and that there is food in abundance to the extent that the Government continues to overlook the need for building up storages or the even grimmer one about people continuing to starve even in an era of abundance.
The theory is that everybody may not be having two square meals a day but nobody is dying of starvation. Not everybody may be well clothed but nobody is going naked. Not everybody has a house but everybody has some kind of shelter.
There is only partial truth in these statements. It is common knowledge that hundreds of thousands of people sleep in the open in metropolitan towns and the big cities. And at today’s inflationary rate what kind of a life can family of five, living in a metro on an income Rs. 2 to 3 thousands lead?
Not to speak of the families below poverty line or those unable to get the so-called minimum wage or those who must look up to a hundred days of employment in a year under the much wonted rozgar yojna losing much of it to the middlemen not necessarily excluding elected representatives of the area.
The refrain from the Manmohan Singh Government and its various spokesmen, including from the Planning Commission is dismissive of what they believe to represent the brainchild of some dark minds which refuse to see the ‘silver-lining’ hanging thereabouts in the periphery of various well-meaning projects. To convince you that the reality is not what you encounter in the market place every day of your existence, but is there hidden in the heart-warming official figures which quote at random. They will talk to you on the necessity of having hygienic toilets (very rightly) when malnutrition or farmer suicides should be the main concern.
The slackness in providing infrastructure – energy, roads, transportation among these – continues to be regarded as a bottleneck but little is mentioned of the time lost in clearance of projects, land acquisition etc. Resurgent India continues to be the “mool mantra” just when we seem to be semi-stagnant. The new mantra is we must expand the manufacturing sector and do it in a big way. Even Indonesia, Vietnam and Bangladesh have turned to it with profit. Not to speak of China. Profiteering may continue to be at a high but that certainly is not the case with investment, domestic or foreign.
Time indeed for a dynamic, decisive, new forward-looking leadership in our country, one that does away with the fuddy-duddies of the existing lot of “leaders”.
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