Congress pays the price

Among the worst hit are farmers, who the editorial points out, are deprived of the benefit of higher prices as the trader commits much earlier to buy their produce. The CPM weekly has a suggestion: there must be “increased pressures” from the Left to force a “course correction” by the UPA.

Budget tricks

According to Prabhat Patnaik, despite the much-touted claims of making higher allocations for the social sector, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram has in fact “quietly pursued his neo-liberal agenda” of opening up the economy to the “vortex” of financial flows. He mentions that the minister wanted Indian firms to undertake capital expenditure abroad with borrowings from the Reserve Bank and warns that “through measures such as these” the ministry is introducing capital account convertibility. “Such introduction by stealth of capital account convertibility is one of the more insidious features of the budget,” writes Patnaik.

The economist says that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh identified two anti-inflationary features of the budget: Cuts in customs and excise duty, and the focus on agriculture. However, the budget “carefully avoids” the issue of price support to farmers at a remunerative level.

According to him, the “only meaningful measure” in the budget is the ban on forward trading of wheat and rice. Yet where steps should have been taken to ensure that tax revenue showed a significant rise relative to GDP, “Chidambaram’s budget does not do so,” says Patnaik.

Culture of protest

National culture versus cultural nationalism was the subject of a discussion at a seminar, ‘India Independent: Economics, politics and culture’ reported in People’s Democracy and attended mostly by Leftists and Left-leaning participants. Many believed that with global capital becoming “all pervasive”, cultural activists also need to find a global language and form of protest.

There are dangers too, like the “impact of imperialism” and withdrawal of the state as a source of patronage. The cultural sphere is witnessing the “concurrence of the imperialist and communal agenda”. Cultural activists have been victimised and gagged. Celebrated painter M.F. Husain’s prosecution, for instance, showed that “communalism has become ingrained in our state structures”.

The report says: “Even though the culture of resistance may not be high art… it still has to be respected for the protest it embodies.”

Compiled by Ananda Majumdar