Advisers with blinkers

Manmohan Singh with Narasimha Rao lighted the path which every successful country took, but it has been people like Guruswamy who did not allow the right things to happen. But for liberalisation, our international reserves would have hovered around 10 to 12 billion and not 32 to 35 as it is today. Has Guruswamy ever pondered why and how small countries like Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan could have reserves more than ours and how Thailand and Malaysia could attract some six million tourists per year compared to India8217;s two million?

The answer is very simple. Our false pride and xenophobia has come in the way. It should not be overlooked that only those countries have prospered, which have accepted ideas of foreign origin. Had we shown success with our own perceptions and actions in the last 50 years, things would have been vastly different. But what did we do instead? We had the best industrial infrastructure in the whole of Asia in 1947, we produced more steel than China, we had a railway network that we were proud of, an administration that was sensitive to people8217;s needs. Nehru, in his customary haste, forced every Britisher to leave, without thinking of the void that it would create in good management. Our neighbour, Malaysia, which was also colonised, continued hiring them and cultivated a sense of industrial discipline.

Of all the negative points made by Guruswamy, not a single one can be attributed to liberalisation. If he says that NRI investments were due to money stashed abroad, he should also analyse why this happened. It was only because of wrong economic policies and the licence raj. As a result, all projects cost us three to four times more than what they should have been.

The nation suffered. Instead of creating wealth, we destroyed it. Take the consumption norms of our industries. We waste electricity, water, fuel, ores and everything else. We are so happy with our ignorance. That we could not attract 90 billion was again due to the fact that liberalisation was not allowed free rein.

When we attained freedom in 1947, our total population was 33 crore. Today the number of people below the poverty line is 40 crore. Could liberalisation have been responsible for so much in such a short period? No. It was the country8217;s socialistic policies that did the damage. Subsidies went into wrong hands. We defend our PSUs knowing fully well that they are bleeding the nation. What greater robbery can there be than our own government trying to save the inefficient SAIL by gifting it Rs 6000 crore?Let us take the value of the rupee. In 1991, the dollar was Rs 30 and not Rs 18, as Guruswamy states.

The fall from Rs 6 to a dollar in 1961 to this occurred during the pre-liberalisation period. I wonder if Guruswamy can explain this gradual but sure fall? Let us see what happened to the currencies in our immediate neighbourhood. Some 25 years ago, one rupee could buy 3 bahts. Today, one baht is equal to Rs 1.6O. Similarly, the Malaysian ringitt was worth Rs 5 in 1981, today it is worth Rs 12. The important thing to note is that both countries went through a big crisis in 1997, when the baht touched 50 to a dollar and the ringitt touched 4.8. Now, they have improved to 37 and 3.8 respectively. Can we say the same about our rupee, despite boasts that the Southeast Asian crisis did not touch us?