There is a dangerous illusion floating around among many, although fortunately not all, of my English-speaking friends that a Congress-led Opposition would not deviate from market-oriented economic policies and that the primary issues today are cultural as there is a broad political consensus regarding the post-Narasimha Rao reforms regime.
This writer would submit that this is a dangerous illusion.
The Congress has from the 1930s been enamoured with “socialism”, stretching and torturing that word to enable it to stand for a patronising, elitist, condescension towards our country’s poor. It is almost as if this school of thought while claiming garibi hatao wanted all along to keep the poor in their place with false hopes and mirages. The short bursts of empowering our people that were practised by Rao and advocated by Manmohan Singh can now be clearly seen as flashes in the pan.
The UPA prompted by Left-leaning NGOs that monopolised its National Advisory Council brought into our country the fashionable neo-Marxist idea of “economic rights”. Everything was a right — education, health, employment, land, income and other you-name-it matters; and groups of citizens were encouraged, even exhorted to keep proclaiming their grievances and demanding these new-found rights. There was never any mention about who would foot the bill and how these miasmal rights would be paid for. The fashionable think tanks of New Delhi, the self-appointed arriviste guardians of the wretched of India’s earth would proclaim these rights and in some Alice-in-Wonderland way the rights would just descend from heaven!
These journeys in imaginary fantasylands had debilitating social, economic, and political consequences.
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RTE to land rights: the punitive laws
The Right to Education Act 2009 mandated that students could pass from one class to another till Class VIII even if they failed their examinations. Perhaps the NDA’s friends in western universities and their Indian counterparts had convinced our desi ideologues that examinations were sinister, capitalist, colonialist, imperialist, majoritarian, fascist, bigoted, reactionary conspiracies.
At one stroke, middle class Indian mothers lost the ability to scold and discipline children who did not study hard. But then, don’t we know that the middle class and their values are unarguably fascist in nature? The Right to Education Act was selectively tyrannical, punitive and intrusive. Government schools where unionised teachers goof off most of the time, and minority-run schools were exempt. But the rest of us, if we wish to run schools, were required to ensure expensive facilities, hire expensive teachers and perform various acrobatic acts to avoid the wrath of the secular, socialist inspectors who would descend on us. With all its faults, our old rote-learning, examination-based, mother-supervised “don’t fail to do your homework”, “learn English and Mathematic well”, admittedly aspiring middle class system has been trundling along. It may not be as good as Finland’s. But then, New Delhi’s NGOs may not be aware that there are more people in Dadar than in Finland! The damages to our human capital on account of ill-conceived moves like the RTE may be a long term one.
The Right to Land basically stated that no highway could be built if twenty-five per cent of the people in the smallest village along the highway objected. It was doubtless conceived as a progressive, utopian, socialistic (possibly different from socialist) measure. It is to the credit of our people that ways have been found to game the system and get around this dangerously foolish law.
The biggest folly which is in the works and which will in all probability be implemented, is the idea of a Universal Basic Income. The idea is to create a Scandinavian paradise in a desperately poor low-productivity country. The idea seems to be to destroy at one stroke the hardworking and frugal ethos of the majority of our people. I have always believed that the northern Europeans like the Dutch, the British and the Scandinavians feel a warm glow inside themselves when they loudly demonstrate solidarity with India’s poor and actually salivate when they think of Indian poverty. This may be called a conspiracy theory. But do note the consequences. We have pompous sermonisers from these countries supporting ill-advised measures, which are bound to ensure that we remain poor.
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The economic foolishness
It is possible that we are being alarmist. But just look at the economic foolishness of Congress-ruled states who are methodically bankrupting our fragile country by reverting to a Pension Scheme which is fiscally dangerous, inter-generationally unfair and replaces a sound proposition which had placed its bets on prudence and economic growth, with a pump-priming chimera. Clearly, this one act alone demonstrates a complete jettisoning of the economic wisdom of Manmohan Singh. Poor Dr. Singh. His sober vision has been completely and disdainfully rejected by his party, which prefers the advice of JNU Marxists who are committed to India’s ongoing poverty.
Let us take a look at defence.
The present government has corporatised the albatross-ridden ordinance factories of yesteryear; they are now performing rather well. The Private Sector has been “allowed” to get into defence production. (As an aside: It is shameful that Indian citizens need to be “allowed” to do something which is common in even in very woke Sweden!). If there is a change in the dispensation in imperial Delhi, we should not be surprised if the ordnance factories are re-departmentalised (a word that this writer is willing to gift to JNU charlatans); the Tata aircraft factory, Bharat Forge and L&T’s defence outfits may all be nationalised with a stroke of the pen.
Some may argue that this writer is exaggerating. But look at the opposition to the Rafale deal. Just imagine what the fate of our air defences would have been without the Rafales, especially in the context of the woke, Leftist Biden Administration reversing Trump’s policies and providing spares for Pakistan’s F-16s. To say that we would have been naked is an understatement. We are still recovering from ten years of “UPA Inaction” on defence production and defence purchases.
One of the most hair-raising and anxiety-inducing aspects of the current Opposition’s hysteria is the sustained attack on Indian corporates. It is not sufficient that regulatory agencies act against any alleged malfeasance on the part of promoters. There has to be a sustained vilification campaign against corporate champions. It is almost as if Indians should not control Australian mines or Israeli ports. I guess our fate is to live in imperious Delhi, drink coffee and write pamphlets on neo-Marxist polemics. Running factories, ports or mines are wicked bourgeoise activities after all. Indians should focus on slogans and posters. I am reminded of 1956, when we introduced Industrial Licensing. The newspapers were screaming about the wicked Tatas and Birlas. And in 1956, Samsung and Hyundai were nowhere in the picture. Instead of encouraging our businesspersons, we strangled them on an extended basis for forty years. One does not know if it is comical or pathetic that the socialists of today are using the libertarian language of opposition to crony capitalism even as they demonstrate their envy and hatred of today’s private sector.
Look what they did to Air India. It was a pioneering, world class effort put together by an Indian family. It was needlessly nationalised. Decade after decade, the company was systematically driven into the ground. I am an admirer of Etihad and Emirates; but one cannot help wondering how much they have gained because one of their competitors was a public sector outfit. And now, seventy years too late, the airline is returned to the Tatas; the planes are old and dirty; the upholstery on the seats fraying; the firm WAS falling apart. It is a tribute to the dirty Indian capitalist house of 1956 that they have willingly shouldered the burden of attempting to restore their orphaned child to respectability.
The Air India example is important. There is a very real danger that as a country we will again lose another seventy years, if we get a government that is captive to woke, socialist, anti-capitalist, rights-driven, fiscally imprudent and NGO-led ideologies. It is not at all obvious that economics can be safely ignored and that the issues are only cultural, whatever that expression may or may not mean in the world of academics and journalists of the western or desi variety. Our choices as a country need to be crafted with care and sobriety.
Jaithirth Rao is a retired businessperson who lives in Mumbai. Views are personal.
(Edited by Anurag Chaubey)