First fix up the grammar of the
system, then start up the politics of populism
By Manohar Manoj
R ight now we have three contenders, standing with high
chest over the issue of change in the country. Congress, BJP and AAP, these all
three parties are claiming that they have the only mantra and panacea to remove
the pain of million of the people of the country, no others have. These all
three have tall claims laden with precious ornaments. The largest and longest
ruling party congress is of the view that this party has enabled the country
with a paradigm of inclusive development. The main opposition party BJP is of
the view that as a country, India has lost its pride of a nation state and its
economy has gone into an ailing condition, whereas this party thinks that its
all ruling states has able to create a fine atmosphere of good governance. The
third newly erected party Aam Admi Party is claiming that both congress and BJP
are corrupt and their intentions are quite doubtful and we are the only
political lot which is taking into account the concern of very common citizen
of the country. Out of these claims being projected by these parties, the big
question that is to be looked by the third eye of the system, the media, which
represents all non partisan voters of the country and work as an observing
fraternity of the system, whether this operating political system,
administrative system, the economic system and ultimately the social system,
these all system which directly affects our sufferings, are they based on a
sound foundations and concreted pillars? Are these systems' health is sound
enough to deal with different aspirations of the public. Have these parties a
resolve to bring fundamentals of the system right on the path or have they only
tall claims. Have they some road map and a vision of long, consisting reform
which can ultimately establish the grammar of the basic operational system of
the country. I think, these all three parties have only tall and ornamental
claims. The big question is that are these parties ready to eliminate all
barricade and hindrance of the system or they have only gimmick to regain the
power for the next time. To my mind, when we talk about the road map of the
change in the system, the attention directly go to the issue of corruption
which is the biggest obstruction in the smooth operation of the all network of
the system. When we pinpoint the issue of corruption then focus goes not on
anti corruption laws and its criminal justice redressal, rather it goes on the
formation of a that kind of system which does not allow corruption to even
germinate. I think it would be the most scientific perception of anti
corruption system. But this objective can be fulfilled only when a political
party has a real vision of governance in terms of policy, making of
institutions, style, transparency, initiatives and endeavor, priorities and
approach towards fundamental reform even without considering an individual and
party line benefit. On these very parameters, when we try to diagnose our
political parties, we find congress, which is largest and longest party of the
country. Out of 65 years of governance, this party has ruled the country around
55 years. This party claims that it has done a lot for the country, But until
unless this claim is taken on a comparative note, we cannot judge it. If we
compare our country with other liberated country of the world at that time we
find that in objective terms our country has not got a very substantial result,
but in absolute terms definitely country has got some milestones. For example,
during Nehru period country witnessed some big industrialization drive along
with foundation of big river valley projects. During Shastri period, prime
minster gave a slogan of JAI JAWAN JAI KISAN, through this he ensured victory
over Pakistan and started campaign of green revolution in the country. During
Indira Gandhi period, first time congress started left oriented policy by
making nationalization of big banks and spreading slogan of garibi hato through
the launching of 20 points socio
economic program, not only that through her wit and acumen Indira congress
separated Bangladesh out of Pakistan and won the heart of even opposition party
who believe in nationalist ideology. In
1977, first time a non congress group came in power at the centre in terms of
Janta party which showed the importance of political freedom. Janta party brought
first time a market alternative to the govt. controlled public distribution
system of the country. In 1980, the revival of India Gandhi showed that the
unity of multi ideologies parties in form of Janta party was just a transitory
phenomenon and were not able to provide a political stability in the country.
The sympathy wave of assassination of Indira Gandhi brought her son Rajiv
Gandhi in the power and he introduced some trailer of liberalized economic
policy along with the introduction of information technology in the country.
Year 1989 witnessed the coming of V P Singh on the issue of corruption, but it
was again failure like 1977. In 1991 the
first non Nehru Gandhi prime minister P V Narshimha rao introduced new economic
policy which was in a way a the biggest decision of congress party in last 40
yrs of independent India. This policy had fundamentally changed the policy
regime over the economic front with a series of time bound consistent reform in
the country. In 1998 and again in 1999 the first pure non congress govt. led by
Atal Bihri Bajpai showed the country that the new economic policy belongs to
the congress party but he will implement it in a faster manner than the
congress party. In 2004, first time the congress party, through running an
alliance govt. tried to show the country that the new economic policy which it
had started, was made inhuman by the BJP, so it will try to make the human face
of it and along with continuing this policy it will also try to launch a
program of inclusive development in the country. Out of high growth economy and enhanced
government revenue, party started to transfer more resources to rural and
informal sector. As a consequence, congress also won the 2009 election. Social
inclusive schemes like MNREGA with the annual cost of 40,000 crore and massive
loan waiver scheme at the cost of around 70000 crore were said to be main
responsible factor for this win. During these last 65 yrs of governance when we
overview the functions of the government and the management of democracy, we
find that these all steps were in fact politically correct but were
systematically incorrect decisions. For
example, in last 2-3 years we witnessed that the way corruption emerged as the
biggest issue in the present politics, in fact for person like us and for many
other social scientists, this issue was already the biggest issue even 40 years
back. During the decade of 1960, the first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had
realized this fact that the governing system of the country has come under the
clutches of corruption, commission, graft and bribery. During the time of
Indira Gandhi, this administrative economic corruption was spreading over
politics also, which was subsequently followed by social corruption and many
more institutions of democracy came under the rein of corruption. Slowly and
steadily, this flame of corruption captured the whole aura of the system and
took the form of cancer. For this being a longest ruling party, congress party
was mainly responsible for it and also the opposition did not make this issue a
matter of priority. Two-three years back, the way the Lokpal agitation , under
the leadership of Anna Hazare and the black money agitation launched by Baba
Ramdev and then emergence of party like AAP
and its showing of good result in Delhi assembly election, these all
development ultimately haunted congress party. Subsequently, this party not
only okayed a long pending Lokpal bill in the parliament in a hurried manner,
now this party in its eleventh hour of its ruling term, even ready to pass all
pending half dozen anti corruption bills in the vote on account short session
of parliament which slated to be held in the first week of February 2014. I firmly believe that though we have a day by
day a new dimension and new outlets of corruption getting emerged, but despite
this in present days in some sector propensity of corruption has been
minimized, not because of efforts of the government, rather because of
application of IT, Online money transfer and some steps of e-governance and
also because of allowing of competitive regime via market forces and regime of
regulatory authorities. The only difference is that corruption is more being
noticed now in comparison to past time, when despite the presence of corruption
and mal governance, corruption were not talked much and hence were not being
made it a political issue also. That is why at that time Congress felt that
corruption is not going to affect their poll prospect, so they were thinking
that there was no harm of this cancerous corruption to the country. In same
way, the opposition parties of the country were of this opinion that until
unless the issue of corruption was beneficial to their poll prospect, they were
also not eager to raise this issue. It clearly means the first priority for the
congress party was to remain in power under the leadership of Nehru Gandhi
family by hook and crook, whether country goes to any direction that is why
they never scanned this corruption as a major problem of the country. These
things are being said, because, in the recently held meeting of block heads of
congress party, congress party claimed that
it has given RTI act to the country, which has enabled the corruption
issue to be continuously broken by the anti corruption activist. But it is to
be noted here that this RTI act was not brought by congress in hasten manner.
It also took many years for the agitationist like Aruna Roy and then this act
was made. If we talk about approach of BJP on the issue of corruption which
also had the experience of ruling centre for more than 6 years and as of know
it also ruled many state governments. This party had also never considered
corruption as a major hindrance factor in the governance; the reason may be for
the BJP that this issue was not very politically beneficial to them. That is
why this party also did not take this issue in the top priority. Off course in
the legislative house, these parties were fighting with each other on the
corruption charges leveled against some ministers or MPs or MLAs, but on whole
issue of corruption in the system, this party never showed any vision. Now we
talk about the new entrant party AAP which born out of Lokpal movement and
latter on it symbolized itself as a party of change attitude intellectuals of
the country. This party registered win in sizeable no. of seats in recently
held Delhi assembly elections and now it has formed govt. in Delhi with the
help of congress party. The day, this party won 28 seats in Delhi and form its
government, it gave a nationwide message to the all aspiring political
activist, who had no opportunities in party like Congress and BJP, they joined
this AAP party. But the biggest question which is being raised over AAP, that
is its approach against corruption. It seems now it is just based on a slogan
and has become a word for AAP, just for attacking against party like BJP and
congress in order to getting political advantage,. System change is not their
agenda. Any corruption free system require huge ideological churning and a making of a comprehensive blue print on
all front, on policy front, on law making front, on institution making front,
on the application of tool of governance front, on priority of governance
front. Slogans are given just for airing which blown away into the atmosphere
but the making of vision, work as a weapon for the governance. Apart from
corruption, there are many issues lying in our contemporary politics which are
the fundamental and prerequisite conditions for the establishment of corruption
free system and checking all kind of mal governance. In the democracy. the way
congress discarded the issue of corruption it made a crime to the country, in
the same way our constitution frames did not assume that in this multi
diversified country, the procedure of democratic politics which they are laying
down, will take the route of identity politics in terms of caste, communal,
creed , culture, region, religion and languages politics in the country, so the
constitution makers of the country would have make provision for effectively
checking the possible emergence of identity politics in the country. Today
every party in the country including AAP are doing their political activities
in identical terms, whether fixing of candidates or raising their issues or
making their vote bank. Is it not true that this kind of trend, which is going
for the last 60 years of politics have in fact, ruined the fabric of the unity
and integrity of the country. The day this country was divided on communal
basis, it flourished the communal sentiments even in divided and secular India;
if India would not have divided on communal line our present secularism would
have more meaningfulness. We all know our whole society is caste ridden which
has been misutilised by our political parties. They represent different castes
of the society and accordingly they have made their vote bank. Our all
political parties run themselves on the basis of class- friends and class- foe
and so they pick their friend and foe both out of these social circumstances.
If our multi party competitive politics were based on good governance only, it
would have provided not only the solid foundation for the national unity and
integrity but also ensured the application great preamble of social justice and
welfare economy. So, if we want to make our politics purely based on good
governance, we have not only to demolish identity politics but also we have to
thwart out the populism kind of politics. The politics of populism, which is
based on the misutilisation of the public money collected out of pocket of
common public, it does not promote welfare to the people, rather it act as a
greed to them for making their vote cast
to the donor parties. Ultimately, it ruins the economy and aggravates
the inflation and promotes the graft tendencies, which ultimately start
harassing of the public in terms of price rise, bribery and all. At present,
all political parties including the largest party congress, they are ready to
go to any extent in order to consolidate their vote cast only because the process
of competition politics in laid down in that manner. The best measuring rod of
any governance or any manifesto of any political party is that which kind of
reform agenda they have, so that they can raise the efficiency of operating
system, can raise the productivity of the system and above all can ensure the
better management of the administration. Only these parameters should be the
USP of any political parties. It is the need of the good governance and it
should be tried to ensure in the activities of all political parties whether
they are in governance or out in the governance. If it is needed of
constitutional amendment, all reform mind forces must go in this direction. It
is the duty of all party and non-party activities to ensure this kind of thing
through constitutional amendment. I
discuss this topic of political reform after discussing the topic of
corruption, only because every citizen expects his welfare to be fulfilled on
behalf of government. If government will start stopping all freebies to the
public without checking all kind of existing corruption in the system, it will
gave people point to say that corrupt are looting but we are being stopped from
getting this and that free facilities from the government. So I do say the
checking of corruption should be followed by banning identity politics along
with abolishing populist economy and if it requires amendment in the
constitution, it should be done or a public opinion must be started to be
made. We know already 100 amendments
have been done in the constitution. If we bring amendment in the constitution
for banning the identity politics and populist economy, it would one of the
most fundamental political reforms in the country in last 65 years. Here i
would like to give a big credit to congress party for its pioneering role in
launching new economic policy. This policy which incorporated a bunch of many
sect oral policies, in fact was brought by congress party for averting the
crisis situation pertaining in the country, but knowingly or unknowingly
it also checked the menace of
corruption, especially on the economic front and it also made our bureaucracy
some bit competitive. Till 90s, on the
economic front, our country was merely buzzing around socialistic and
communistic slogans, there was nothing more than this. People living in the
rural areas did not even know what is called government and where is their
presence in their village. Our economy was hardly growing with the speed of 3
to 5 percent till 1990. But it was the new economic policies, which facilitated
high growth and brought a competitive environment in the economy and promoted
the sense of efficiency in the some public sector enterprises, and thus an
appropriate investment climate gets started in the country. As a consequence in
last 2 decade we have high growth regime. Our worst growth rate of 5 percent
was the best growth rate in 1950-90 periods and highest growth rate touched
even double digit mark. It consequently the revenue kitty of government get
enlarged and govt. made more transfer of resources to the rural and informal
sector. But, in the absence of fundamental reform and perfect matching of
policy measures govt. conducted those kind of program in the name of inclusive
development, they almost went into vain. Because a good economic foundation,
which government had achieved uptill the year 2008, it was sacrificed through
taking populist kind of measures like loan waiving schemes at the cost of 70000
crore and non asset creating scheme like MNREGA.at the annual cost of 40000
crore. These schemes were part of inclusive development as per congress party,
but it was done for ensuring vote in2009 Loksabha elections. These things could
have averted but our politics which is based on identity politics and populist
economy could not stop this kind of initiatives on the part of congress party.
But it resulted in huge crisis to the economy since year 2009 onwards and we
have high fiscal deficit, high current account deficit and high inflation rate.
Some says that loan waiver scheme to the farmers were done for granting relief
to them and checking their suicide, but thing is that our farmers are still
making suicide and its permanent solution lies in providing cost plus prices to
the all agro produces produced by the farming community of the nation, by
making all crops insured under agriculture insurance scheme, which has not been
done yet. In the same way, it was said MNREGA was brought to stop unemployment
and migration of the laborers. But in fact, MNREGA is doing what, just dig out
land and fill it out land, and it is thus misusing huge amount of tax money
collected out of the pocket of public. If this scheme would have a foundation
of making strong infrastructure in the rural areas, it won' have any
inflationary pressure over the economy. This is the simple principle of the
economy that any monetary investment in the economy, if it is not supported by
production of goods and services in the country, it would have inflationary
pressure over the economy. So the result is before us, we have high inflation.
In form of MNREGA, the huge amount of public money being spent over whom, who
are unemployed youth, who are productive, if this money would have spend over
the vulnerable section of society in terms of pension and relief, it has logic,
because every govt. has a primary duty to provide comprehensive social security
to the all vulnerable section of society, the aged, the handicaps, the widow
and widowers, the orphans, the mentally retarded etc. So, this claim of
congress party of bringing MNREGA, was a revolutionary step, in fact is
meaningless. Our view is that even more amount of money should go the rural
sector, but not for being misused like MNREGA, rather in the infrastructure
building and skill development which could generate productive assets as well
as employment generations in the rural areas. Mentioning about food inflation,
the basic reason of this, which we are not mentioning, that is non availability
of remunerative prices in terms of minimum ensured prices to the all agro commodities,
which is affecting supply chain of the country. In the absence of maximum
statutory prices of all agro commodities we have unrestricted prices of all
agro commodities during off season period. Since no political party is ready to
bear pain of taking bold fundamental reform, they succumbed to take only those
steps which were politically beneficial to them. It is the precondition of good governance to
abolish all kind of subsidies. And for
providing relief to the consumers, govt. should take the route of just lower
down or completely waive the taxes imposed over the subsidized items. In all,
to my mind, for any welfare governments, there must be 4 areas of governance,
these are 1. Infrastructure building,
under this public private partnership on basis of level playing must be allowed
to some extend under one regulatory authority
2. Human development-education and health, under this public private
partnership on basis of level playing must be allowed to some extend under one
regulatory authority 3. providing social
security to all person who belongs to vulnerable section of society like all
handicap, all widow and all widower, all mentally retarded, all orphans, all 55
plus man women citizens of country and also these pension should be linked with
price index and 4. Exploring all possibilities of employment generation with
the help of labor reform and by making price index linked wages to the all
unorganized worker and 5. Ensuring cost plus prices to the all agro commodities
plus SME produced items and fixing maximum prices of all agro commodities.These
all five element are testing points of our all reform measures. So the question
is who wants to create a full grammatical environment of governance and want to
knit the fabric a cohesive system. But the thing is that there is a race among
all political parties on adopting identity politics or populist decision. That
is why congress without considering the economic interest of 16 crore farming
communities and the prevailing ailing condition of economy of the country,
brought food security act just for catching votes and ensuring win in the
next Loksabha elections just on the line
of 2009 election when farmers loan waiver ensured congress victory. Over these
issues, congress is not only responsible, in fact all are responsible. Because,
when our courts had made several decision over banning caste rallies, imposing
ban on charge sheeted public representatives like MP, MLAs, banning populist
decisions of the government and delegating public, right to reject during
voting. Almost all parties gave their reaction on these decisions in a very
mild manner. On the issue of charge sheeted and convicted MPs, MLAs the
situation turned in such a way that congress has to withdraw the ordinance,
which was ready to promulgated over this. The central information commission
said that all political parties should come under RTI scanner, but no political
parties' bosses liked it. They thought their headman position and activities of
nepotism will ceased to be end after this development. So they opposed it in
collective manner in all party meetings. Whereas I thing this step might have
been a great move to make multi party democracy, a real democracy and it has
opened door for all public life seeker people. On all these ideal counts, the
newly formed party AAP was got exposed.
This party was more expected to adopt political idealism and
deliver fundamental reform in the country, but in spite of this, this party
tried to come in race like other big parties in taking political donation. This
party also declared all populist kind of announcement at the cost public
exchequer and it also issued communal appeal in order to get community's vote.
Now the recent Dharna staged by CM kezriwal, proved this they only want to make
furor, not interested in framing any fundamental thing for bring probity and
honesty in the system.. They are just making political adventurism to get media
limelight and fulfilling undue high political ambition. So ultimately country
requires a sound political alternative having all vision regarding every
spheres of public life of the country.
Writer is a senior journalist and convener, Bharat Parivartan Abhiyan
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