05-26-2007, 02:35 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Back to the past </b>
The Pioneer Edit DeskÂ
PM's homily is anti-prosperity
Mahatma Gandhi was once asked what he thought of Western civilisation. It's a good idea, he replied. A similar cryptic response would do justice to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's homily at the annual general meeting of the Confederation of Indian Industry on Thursday. This is not to cavil at Mr Singh for his maudlin lament or for suggesting that free market economics has only widened the gap between the haves and the have-nots. But it is tempting to point out that it is rather late in the day to discover that the prescription he wrote out as Finance Minister in PV Narasimha Rao's Government is not quite what he intended. Having helped dismantle the state-controlled economy that ensured most of India wallowed in poverty while some lived in luxury, <b>he now appears to be regretting the fact that more Indians are affluent today than ever before. </b>Â <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo--> Of course, there is a dark side to India's success story and it would be stupid to deny that at least a quarter of our people live in appalling poverty. But it is equally stupid to suggest that the underclass can be helped only by impoverishing those who have been able to break free of the poverty chain. That suggestion is implicit in what the Prime Minister has recommended by way of a social charter. <b>It is absurd to recommend a ceiling for salaries paid to professionals by the private sector or insist that those who earn should not spend their money. In brief, he wants the private sector to emulate the public sector, remove all performance-related incentives and punish productivity.</b> More importantly, <b>he has slyly let it be known that the incompetent Government he heads is not averse to the idea of restricting the profits made by the private sector</b>. If you read between the lines of his speech, what you will discover is that Mr Singh has repackaged the ills of the licence-permit-quota raj as virtues worth emulating.
The Prime Minister's plaintive call for an inclusive society and the need for private sector to fulfil its social responsibility should not detract attention from the core message of his speech - the UPA Government will now increasingly take recourse to measures that hobbled India's economy till it was freed from the clutches of venal politicians and bogus economists. It makes little sense for Mr Singh to berate sections of media, especially 24x7 television channels, which dedicate space and time to publicise the excesses of a few who have money to burn. <b>Those very sections of media also happen to pretend ideological proximity with the Congress and its allies in the UPA regime </b>and are feted for their unquestioning support of every absurdity that is peddled as policy by a Government that has little to show by way of achievement after three years in power. <b>Mr Singh is welcome to speak in a language that harks back to the days when a handful of crony capitalists and their patrons in the Congress and the bureaucracy lived in comfort while the masses toiled for a pittance. </b>That <b>was Socialist India, a country where poverty was celebrated as a Gandhian virtue, the poor misled by hollow slogans like 'Garibi Hatao', and prosperity restricted to a chosen few.</b> In today's Free Market India, everybody has the opportunity to prosper, which vastly diminishes Government's power, as also that of those who ruled the roast till reforms knocked them off their pedestal, to control India's destiny. That loss of power has begun to hurt. It shows in Mr Singh's speech.
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The Pioneer Edit DeskÂ
PM's homily is anti-prosperity
Mahatma Gandhi was once asked what he thought of Western civilisation. It's a good idea, he replied. A similar cryptic response would do justice to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's homily at the annual general meeting of the Confederation of Indian Industry on Thursday. This is not to cavil at Mr Singh for his maudlin lament or for suggesting that free market economics has only widened the gap between the haves and the have-nots. But it is tempting to point out that it is rather late in the day to discover that the prescription he wrote out as Finance Minister in PV Narasimha Rao's Government is not quite what he intended. Having helped dismantle the state-controlled economy that ensured most of India wallowed in poverty while some lived in luxury, <b>he now appears to be regretting the fact that more Indians are affluent today than ever before. </b>Â <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo--> Of course, there is a dark side to India's success story and it would be stupid to deny that at least a quarter of our people live in appalling poverty. But it is equally stupid to suggest that the underclass can be helped only by impoverishing those who have been able to break free of the poverty chain. That suggestion is implicit in what the Prime Minister has recommended by way of a social charter. <b>It is absurd to recommend a ceiling for salaries paid to professionals by the private sector or insist that those who earn should not spend their money. In brief, he wants the private sector to emulate the public sector, remove all performance-related incentives and punish productivity.</b> More importantly, <b>he has slyly let it be known that the incompetent Government he heads is not averse to the idea of restricting the profits made by the private sector</b>. If you read between the lines of his speech, what you will discover is that Mr Singh has repackaged the ills of the licence-permit-quota raj as virtues worth emulating.The Prime Minister's plaintive call for an inclusive society and the need for private sector to fulfil its social responsibility should not detract attention from the core message of his speech - the UPA Government will now increasingly take recourse to measures that hobbled India's economy till it was freed from the clutches of venal politicians and bogus economists. It makes little sense for Mr Singh to berate sections of media, especially 24x7 television channels, which dedicate space and time to publicise the excesses of a few who have money to burn. <b>Those very sections of media also happen to pretend ideological proximity with the Congress and its allies in the UPA regime </b>and are feted for their unquestioning support of every absurdity that is peddled as policy by a Government that has little to show by way of achievement after three years in power. <b>Mr Singh is welcome to speak in a language that harks back to the days when a handful of crony capitalists and their patrons in the Congress and the bureaucracy lived in comfort while the masses toiled for a pittance. </b>That <b>was Socialist India, a country where poverty was celebrated as a Gandhian virtue, the poor misled by hollow slogans like 'Garibi Hatao', and prosperity restricted to a chosen few.</b> In today's Free Market India, everybody has the opportunity to prosper, which vastly diminishes Government's power, as also that of those who ruled the roast till reforms knocked them off their pedestal, to control India's destiny. That loss of power has begun to hurt. It shows in Mr Singh's speech.
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