Centre-right? That’s all right

It is evident that there is only one way of economic governance, which is to embrace global markets, fight for larger share of flowing capital, build infrastructure and enterprise.

A market in Jammu (Representational image) | Dhiraj Singh | Bloomberg

Two events on the same day this week, in the two most distant metros in the country, each involving an adversarial brother and a fraternal adversary, raised the same, intriguing, vital and delicious question. Was it pro-rich, or pro-aam aadmi?

In Mumbai Prime Minister Manmohan Singh laid the foundation stone of the new metro, its builder-to-be, Anil Ambani, proudly by his side. Forget the politico-corporate significance of the event for a moment. Just ask yourself this simple question: when India’s most respected and successful economic reformer goes ahead to bless a mega commuting infrastructure project to be built by one of its biggest corporates and tells his own party’s government in Mumbai to get its act together, is he batting for the rich, or the poor? For corporate greed, or for the aam aadmi‘s needs?

Is he pulling his moral and prime ministerial weight in favour of the long-suffering poor and middle classes in a decaying city, or is he merely blessing another corporate money-making adventure and underlining his alleged neo-liberal obsession?

Now switch to Kolkata, nearly 2,000 km to the east. Here, West Bengal Chief Minister Budhadeb Bhattacharjee stands beaming beside a beaming Mukesh Ambani on the 30th anniversary of the Left Front government, publicly thanks him for “taking the trouble” of coming to Kolkata and warmly welcomes his plans to invest Rs 2,000 crore each in agri-retailing and gas pipeline infrastructure.

Is not only India’s, but possibly the world’s most popular Communist leader junking his beliefs and succumbing to the charms of the moneybags, or is he taking one more giant step for the welfare of the poorest of poor, the agrarian class of mostly very small land-owners with no marketing clout? Is this the rise of a new commie-corporate cronyism, or is it learning the truth from facts and doing the right thing by his own aam aadmi?

The question becomes even more interesting as he followed this up immediately by amending his state’s Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) Act to allow the private sector to buy produce directly from the farmer.

If the answer is the former, that these were both pro-rich, neo-liberal sort of infractions, then it would seem the virus is catching on with the political class. In the same week, Tamil Nadu patriarch Karnunanidhi visited the Infosys and Wipro campuses in neighbouring Tamil Nadu, inspired by his party’s young IT minister at the Centre, Dayanidhi Maran, and in the company of Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy in spite of the fact that politically, he is part of a rival formation, and there are serious, current issues between their respective states.

Again, in the same week, Manmohan Singh was in Bangalore too, laying the foundation stone of the metro there and an elevated highway in the company of the same Kumaraswamy who stabbed his party’s government in the back and now leads a coalition with the BJP.

And forget Manmohan Singh for the moment. He is, after all, no more than a ‘neo-liberal’, pro-American, pro-Zionist dilettante, anti-poor, and so anti-third world he even wants to take India out of that holy grouping by talking of high growth rates. What about the messiah of the poor Dravidian Karunanidhi, who would give his voter everything free, from rice to television sets to, who knows, an air-conditioner each next? And what about the Gowdas, the self-appointed, ‘humble’ champions of the poor farmer? Have they lost their way so completely as to be crowing about building infrastructure in Bangalore while rural Karnataka, particularly its farm sector, is in such ‘distress’?

Run your eye across the map of India and you cannot get away from the contagion. In Orissa BJP’s ally, Navin Patnaik, who also happens to be one of the cleanest and most popular chief ministers in the country, is rolling the red carpet to attract corporate investments from Tata to Jindal, from IFFCO to POSCO. Has he lost touch with the reality of his state, one of the poorest in India? Once again, the same question, is he batting for the moneybags, or his aam aadmi?

Go north, south, east or west, the same question confronts you. One of the first ideas of the new Left Front government in Kerala, led by the most committed Stalinist since Stalin, is to exclude IT and tourism industries from strikes. India’s most prominent and politically successful Lohiaite, Mulayam Singh Yadav, has allowed a spectacular privatisation of sugar industry in his Uttar Pradesh that is working to the benefit of all, from the farmer to the industrialist, to his exchequer.

The number two Lohiaite, in Bihar, is so keen to attract investment, he has appointed N.K. Singh of the NDA’s once-dreaded neo-liberal ‘mafia’ to head his development board. The BJP governments in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh are building intra-state road networks in public-private partnerships or on BOT basis at break-neck speed. The chief ministers of Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana are all bending over backwards to attract corporate investment, to build infrastructure, to corporatise agriculture, towards contract farming. Have they all gone mad? Have they all forgotten their politics? Just what the hell is going on?

Well, if they have indeed gone mad, at least the ideologues of the Left, the self-styled champions of the aam aadmi, assorted povertarians – who love poverty (different from the poor) so much their leitmotif is, “poverty is my birthright, and you shall have it” – should take heart. Because then India must be ripe for an immediate revolution. But no such thing is going to happen.

In fact, in spite of all this dark talk of the have-nots versus have-mores, the farmer versus the broker, the corporate versus the destitute, the overall mood in our country is so wonderfully upbeat, we are moving on nevertheless. In fact, as one case in point, in none of the states other than Bengal and Kerala, where elections have taken place lately, has the Left’s vote share added even one more percentage point.

So, here is my take on what is going on. A different sort of revolution is sweeping our country. It is sometimes said that Manmohan Singh and his key ministers are erring gravely in running a centre-right government while the mood in their coalition, and even their party, is strongly centre-left. But if you forget the ‘mood’ for a moment and survey the entire country, and indeed the rest of the world as well, it is now evident that, whatever your ideology, there is only one way of economic governance.

It is to embrace the global markets, be creative and competitive, fight for a larger share of the flowing capital, build better infrastructure, wealth, enterprise, and thereby more jobs and money for welfare schemes. You can call it centre-right if you wish. But if people, from Manmohan Singh to Buddhadeb, to Karunanidhi to Gowda, from Patnaik to Mulayam, from Nitish to Vasundhara and so on, are in their own ways following the same mantra of governance, there must be something right with it. This is the way India has been changing over the past 15 years. Events of this week just seem to have brought so much of the evidence together in such a remarkable manner.