From Business World of 19 April 2004.
Agendas and
propaganda
On the agenda of National Democratic
Alliance (NDA), Atal Behari Vajpayee “poses” in front of the sheer sandstone
wall of Parliament, a pillar of strength in an immaculately tailored,
single-cuffed, three-quarter-length kurta, a smart dark waistcoat equipped with
a pen, a billowing, lined dhoti, polished pathani chappals, and sunglasses.
Here is a man of fashion – but also a man of authority, a man to whom you can
leave the affairs of the state. Here is a man in command; he will command the
commander-in-chief of Pakistan to keep peace, and the rain Gods to drench
India. He is the man of the future; even if he has to leave the future
unguided, future once touched by him will fly India into the heaven of advanced
nations.
On the Congress
manifesto, an attentive Sonia Gandhi bends benignly over the masses, dressed in
a Gujarati handloom sari, the palloo demurely draped over the head, a long red
dash on the forehead evidently planted by a fawning amateur. She is holding the
petitions she has been handed; below her, villagers – women, children, and in
the background, men marching in procession behind a portrait of Indira Gandhi.
Here is a woman of the people who would take the government to the people. She
is the woman to make the women of India come to the fore. Backwards, forwards,
scheduled, unscheduled, downtrodden, sidelined – all will be properly docketed
and made to develop.
On the inside
cover, the NDA agenda has a poem saying, “I think I will make a new India”
There are two errors - “sanmaan” is spelt as “sammaan”, and– “vijay” is made
feminine. But otherwise it is a nice, anodyne poem which everyone would
understand and no one would disagree violently with. It is the kind of poem
that would have been recited by the Prime Minister when pressed by ignorant,
fawning journalists.
On the inside
cover of the Congress manifesto, a scholarly pseudo-poem, whose every line
starts with “a time to…”. And at the back, a recital of reasons for voting
Congress. A lot of c’s clatter away here – the Congress’s contributions,
commitments, concerns, charter, clarity, conviction, compassion, consistency.
Also, much repetition; one feels the Congress cannot think of many reasons for
asking for a vote. The best reason for voting the Congress is the alternative –
if you do not want the whole of India to turn into a Gujarat, if you do not
want 29 Uma Bhartis as chief ministers, vote for Congress. But the Congress is
too polite to say that.
NDA’s agenda
begins by blowing its own bugle – and why should it not? Before the last
elections it had issued “An Agenda for a Proud, Prosperous India”; in the five
years, NDA has given the country prosperity and cause to be proud.
Unprecedented high growth, peace with Pakistan, reconciliation with border
people, swelling exchange reserves, low inflation, globally competitive
industry and services, lots of houses, food for work, school for all children –
it is an impressive catalogue of achievements, tall claims and lucky breaks. At
the time of elections, it is customary for ruling parties to take credit for
luck. Great monsoon? Well, what do you expect? The Prime Minister has a hotline
to Indra.
The Congress
cannot, of course, take credit for them, since it was out of power; but then it
takes credit for being what it is – a nationalist, secular party of the poor
and the downtrodden. And then follows a commentary on the misdeeds of NDA which
may have been written by Indira Gandhi. She is at any rate on top of the page,
looking rather cross and disheveled and holding two documents. Maybe they are
entry permits to whichever part of heaven she went to. Maybe the class she was
admitted to was not quite to her liking. Maybe they put her in the queue for
admission, and she does not like the waiting room. Anyway, under her
disapproving glare, NDA is accused of having thrown millions out of employment,
reduced the growth rate of the economy, distressed farmers and farm workers,
organized riots, taught children religious hatred, corrupted the government,
insulted democratic institutions and kowtowed to the US. It sounds rather
shocking – and unconvincing. It would have carried greater conviction if
the Congress had marshaled a few facts and figures. There is a certain air
about its manifesto which suggests that its writers were not quite fully
engaged – or that they thought themselves to be so authoritative that people
would believe anything they said.
After these
preliminary insults, the Congress Manifesto gets down to its task – saying what
the Congress would do with power. It is aimed at its favourite interest groups.
Every rural family will be guaranteed a hundred days of employment on public
works. On May Day every year, the Congress government will publish a national
employment report. Credit to farmers will be doubled in three years. Their
tubewells will be repaired. Farm workers will be paid the minimum wage. A third
of the seats in legislatures will go to women; 30 per cent of local authority
funds will be spent on women and children. Women will be given complete equality
in law with men. Reservations will be extended to backward classes amongst
non-Hindus as well; the private sector will be encouraged to adopt
reservations. Unorganized workers will get social security. Hawkers will be
given a legal right to space on urban streets. It would be excellent if hawkers
and non-Hindu backward women read this manifesto. But only urban, upwardly
mobile Anglophones are likely to read it; and amongst them, the manifesto will
lose the Congress a lot of votes. It deserves credit for the courage and
honesty with which it has tried to alienate them.
On economic
issues the Congress is surprisingly vague. Taxes as a proportion of GDP must be
raised by at least a fifth. The Congress does not know what to do about the
yawning revenue deficit, but promises to come up with a plan within 30 days of
coming to power. That should give it plenty of time to think up something.
After all this
pandering to interest groups in the Congress manifesto, the NDA agenda is a
refreshing study in contrast. Here, interest groups take a back seat; the
agenda is all about India, about making India an economic superpower – the food
factory of the world, global manufacturing hub, service provider to the world,
center of the knowledge economy, global destination of tourists, patients and
students. Everything is on a grand scale. Rs 500 billion will be spent in the
name of Jayaprakash Narayan on agricultural infrastructure, Rs 150 billion on
railways, another Rs 200 billion on unfinished railway projects, Rs 170 billion
on railway safety, Rs 50 billion on railway stations, Rs 1 trillion on ports
and shipyards, Rs 400 billion on power projects, and Rs 5 trillion to link
rivers. Figures like Rs 10, 20 or 30 billion are small change strewn
across the pages. These NDA guys certainly know how to spend money. On where
they will get it, they are rather vague. But after all, it is expenditure that
generates income. The millions that the candidates for the elections have
declared as their wealth this time, and the billions they did not declare, must
have come from someone else’s expenditure; so NDA has got its antennae trained
in the right direction.
Then follow a
few hundred promises, some grand, some unwise, some stupid. You are invited to
the launch ceremony of the Second Green Revolution by the Prime Minister on 15
August, 2004. The first ever train will steam into Srinagar before 15 August
2007; the Prime Minister wants to be on it. All revenue records will be
computerized; leasing of agricultural land will be allowed. The 1551 farmers’
call center service will be extended to all languages and regions. Production
of pulses and oilseeds will be raised and imports stopped within five years.
Cow and her children will be protected; if they starve under NDA’s protection,
they can hardly complain. And it does not matter; NDA has not promised to give
them a vote. A law will be passed to ensure that Sonia and her descendants will
never become Prime Minister or President or whatever. Shepherds will have their
own Development Corporation. A stop will be put to inspector raj within six
months – at least, strong measures will be taken.
Half of Fortune
500 companies will be persuaded to do a big part of their R&D in India.
Foreign scientists and professionals will be made welcome in India. An Indian
will be put on the moon by an Indian rocket in 2008. Every city will have
enough pay-and-squat toilets within three years. Two world-class theme parks
will show tourists how virtuous, civilized Indians lived in the Vedic age. A
hundred pilgrimage centers will receive public investment. The glory of Nalanda
will be recaptured; 25 universities and 100 colleges will be raised to
international standards. Two hundred flyovers will be built every year in
smaller cities. Those who followed Murli Manohar Joshi’s measures to indigenize
the education system will wonder what international standards mean to NDA;
others will wonder why small cities are particularly hospitable places for
flyovers. But need does not matter. Ever since the BJP-Shiv Sena government
gave contracts to loyal builders to build flyovers all over Bombay in the late
1990s, flyovers have been very fashionable with NDA and its members.
This is not the
place to spill all the NDA’s plans. But the above random list should whet the
appetite of those who would believe party manifestos. And even if you do not
believe them, the NDA agenda will lift your spirits. Whatever one may think of
their ability, seriousness or understanding, the NDA’s care-free,
forward-looking nationalism makes better reading than the Congress’s
sanctimonious, self-congratulatory nationalism.