To be honest, we do not exactly have a pressing reason or provocation to assess the performance of UPA-II exactly at this point of time. No first hundred days, no first anniversary, no first budget and so on.
In other words, there is nothing that we journalists would call the news peg. Yet there is something that tells you this is as good a time as any to analyse and evaluate this government’s performance at this point, and to check where it is headed. Or even if it is moving, or seeming to stall.
Answers to these questions are never simple or easy, and they have rarely been, except say, in Rajiv Gandhi’s first year when things were galloping, and in V.P. Singh’s first (and mercifully only year) when we were rapidly sliding backwards. But on balance now you have to admit that large sections of this government give you the impression of stalling.
Then, as you dig deeper, you also find that it is stalling not particularly because it encountered any headwinds, but is in the doldrums that are its very own creation. Why it has done so, is an intriguing question.
It could be complacence: an easy second term, an economy pretty much reviving by itself, a year of respite from terror.
It could be laziness and fatigue: there are still several members in this cabinet who know this is their last real job and if their party still wins in 2014, the best they could hope for is a Raj Bhavan. And not many fancy having the audacity or the hormones to have as much fun there as apparently N.D. Tiwari did.
It could also be deliberate: a do-nothing strategy, Mamata Banerjee thinks, can work well for her till 2011, and Sharad Pawar, who has turned out to be such a stunningly clueless agriculture minister, does not know what we can or should do anyway. It is also likely that this is, as we columnists usually love to say, a combination of all three.
But let me dare to suggest that there is a fourth problem that bedevils this government. It is its very surprising inability, even lack of inclination, to talk to the people, either to explain its actions or, even more significantly, to create public opinion to back policy decisions it intends to take.
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The second decade of the 21st century can’t be compared with 1991 when economic reform could be carried out pretty much by stealth, without any debate in public. Narasimha Rao was clear about what he was doing: he was gambling with change he himself wasn’t fully convinced about and he would take the credit if it worked, or dump it along with Manmohan Singh if it did not.
And the reformer of 1991 was like somebody harvesting an orchard of low-hanging fruit that he could pluck at will. The equation has completely reversed in 2010.
There is very little low-hanging fruit left when it comes to economic and policy reform. No, UPA-II now has to deliver on big, game-changing reform.
Revitalising and massively expanding India’s creaky and inadequate infrastructure is just the start. Taking on Naxalites needs a similarly big effort. Reworking how industry acquires rural land will need us to alter attitudes that we’ve had since independence; without sweeping change in higher education, and fast, another generation will be left out of the India growth story. All of these require a robust national conversation.
The likely scapegoat of 1991 is now the leader and yet, if something were to really go to pieces, his party’s chosen scapegoat. So there is very little percentage in his not talking to his people and explaining, selling and commending his own policies to them.
All this strange diffidence is resulting in is sending large sections of his government into a shell, some in confusion, some in lazy celebration and some, a very small but significant section of the usual suspects, even licking their chops in anticipation of a mid-term change if the government continues to looked stalled.
It is a most curious situation where a prime minister with such high personal credibility and a remarkable track record is shy of creating public opinion in support of his own ideas and policies.
We have complained in the past about the silence of the reformer in our political system, both in the NDA and UPA. But we now face an utterly avoidable situation of the silence of our entire leadership.
It is not as if people are not talking. At least two of the ministers in the MEA can’t say no to cameras no matter what the question is about, even if it is about what some nutcase blogger said in China. Nearly a half dozen secretaries in this government are on their way to becoming media stars, filling in the space left vacant by its ministers.
But did the prime minister deliver to us simple folk one speech explaining what he was trying to do in Sharm el-Sheikh and why? Did he, or even Sonia or Rahul Gandhi, make even half a statement before that meeting to prepare public opinion for some change or shift?
Remember the way Vajpayee, and in the past even Indira and Nehru, used Parliament or just any other public forum to give the people just the cue they need, particularly when they have a government they trust?
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The stepping back over Sharm el-Sheikh was this government’s first false step, the cricketing equivalent would be a team losing its first wicket. A little quibble over drafting apart, it was entirely self-inflicted because nobody had prepared the people of India for this change. The failure to get any of the old reform bills pensions, banking, insurance passed in two sessions of this Parliament is entirely because of that same diffidence.
If leaders of this UPA, unburdened of the Left, were using some of the TV talk time to open up these issues, the benefits these reforms will bring to us, in public debate, the BJP would have found it cheap not to offer support in the Rajya Sabha for bills that were first written by its own government.
But none of that has been done. There even seems no urgency to do so as we are so consumed by our joy at seven per cent-plus growth, sinking even deeper into that China-minus-four complacence. This is when, instead of celebrating seven and anticipating nine, our leaders should have been setting targets of ten and above.
It’s not as if nobody is talking. Some are, and getting results. Chidambaram is turning out to be one of our most transparent, and open, home ministers ever, even thinking aloud on structural changes in his ministry and throwing into public debate an idea that could indeed have been pushed through in secrecy. He has similarly communicated with people at large on Naxalism and terrorism and this government has been rewarded with widespread popular support for its policies on these key issues.
Kapil Sibal is talking about his ideas way ahead of implementation and while old-timers initially accused him of being impatient and immature, they should now applaud, because not only is there so little opposition to his ideas of change, there is a great deal of support.
Jairam Ramesh has done a good job of explaining his shifts, and has not been shy of joining a very robust debate on climate change, with rewards.
Kamal Nath inherited a ministry in suspended animation but one reason he has been able to shake it up, and win many internal bureaucratic battles, is that he is talking and building his own public opinion.
Then think of all those who are silent: the food and agriculture minister tops the list. Somebody has to explain to the people why food prices are rising and what is being done about it. The last time we heard him talk in public was about the terrible cricket pitch at the Kotla.
In 2010, when people are wise as well as impatient, this is not going to work. Around the world incumbents are getting elected now because people have both access to facts and the wisdom to analyse them. That is why the UPA won a second term with a greater majority. Its silence and complacence are not doing it much good, in spite of all the tom-tomming of 7.5 per cent growth.
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