06-24-2006, 11:22 PM
NATIONAL INTEREST
Centre-right? Thatâs all right
Shekhar Gupta
Posted online: Saturday, June 24, 2006 at 0000 hrs Print Email
CMs from north, south, east and west of the country are embracing markets and corporate investment. They have sensed the new mood
Shekhar Gupta
Related Stories
Who needs checks & balances? Up & down in down southNow, donât lose the plotLong live our dead ghosts
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 admi?
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 Indiaâs 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 partyâs government in Mumbai to get its act together, is he batting for the rich, or the poor? For corporate greed, or for the aam admiâs 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 âtaking the troubleâ 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 Indiaâs, but possibly the worldâs 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 admi? The question becomes even more interesting as he followed this up immediately by amending his stateâs Agricultrural 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 partyâs 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 partyâs 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 âneo-liberalâ, 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, âhumbleâ 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 âdistressâ?
Run your eye across the map of India and you cannot get away from the contagion. In Orissa BJPâs 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 admi?
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. Indiaâs 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 NDAâs once-dreaded neo-liberal âmafiaâ 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 admi, assorted povertarians â who love poverty (different from the poor) so much their leitmotif is, âpoverty is my birthright, and you shall have itâ â 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 Leftâs vote share added even one more percentage point.
CMs from north, south, east and west of the country are embracing markets and corporate investment. They have sensed the new mood
Who needs checks & balances? Up & down in down southNow, donât lose the plotLong live our dead ghosts
So, here is my take on what is going on. A different sort of revolution is sweeping our country. It is sometimes said 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 âmoodâ 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.
sg@expressindia.com
Centre-right? Thatâs all right
Shekhar Gupta
Posted online: Saturday, June 24, 2006 at 0000 hrs Print Email
CMs from north, south, east and west of the country are embracing markets and corporate investment. They have sensed the new mood
Shekhar Gupta
Related Stories
Who needs checks & balances? Up & down in down southNow, donât lose the plotLong live our dead ghosts
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 admi?
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 Indiaâs 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 partyâs government in Mumbai to get its act together, is he batting for the rich, or the poor? For corporate greed, or for the aam admiâs 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 âtaking the troubleâ 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 Indiaâs, but possibly the worldâs 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 admi? The question becomes even more interesting as he followed this up immediately by amending his stateâs Agricultrural 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 partyâs 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 partyâs 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 âneo-liberalâ, 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, âhumbleâ 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 âdistressâ?
Run your eye across the map of India and you cannot get away from the contagion. In Orissa BJPâs 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 admi?
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. Indiaâs 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 NDAâs once-dreaded neo-liberal âmafiaâ 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 admi, assorted povertarians â who love poverty (different from the poor) so much their leitmotif is, âpoverty is my birthright, and you shall have itâ â 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 Leftâs vote share added even one more percentage point.
CMs from north, south, east and west of the country are embracing markets and corporate investment. They have sensed the new mood
Who needs checks & balances? Up & down in down southNow, donât lose the plotLong live our dead ghosts
So, here is my take on what is going on. A different sort of revolution is sweeping our country. It is sometimes said 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 âmoodâ 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.
sg@expressindia.com