Faint-hearted reform

Humming and hawing has become a state of mind for the NDA government. It would, of course, like to appear a modernising, reform-minded entity, but when it comes to the crunch, when it comes to taking those decisive steps, it suffers invariably from a bad case of nerves. A fairly notorious history was repeated all over again on Wednesday when the cabinet preferred not to take any action on long-pending proposals to raise the foreign equity cap in several sectors, including telecom, civil aviation and petroleum.

There is no reason why this last minute stalling should have taken place, seeing that the FDI plan had gone through due process. Proposed by the N.K. Singh Committee on Foreign Investment, it had been approved by the Group of Ministers on Foreign Investment. That’s not all, the same inertia had characterised the Union cabinet’s response when it had been presented to the cabinet just before the budget. This needless procrastination sends out several, not very edifying, messages about the government: That it suffers from the fatal flaw of indecision; that its response to policy is confused; that it is not prepared to stand by its commitments; that it is in the thrall of groups like the Swadeshi Jagran Manch and cannot act with any autonomy; that it is too-easily-influenced by various lobbies; that it is cynical in the extreme and trims its political vision to suit the political moment. Why would an issue be brought to the attention of the cabinet if a view on it had not been evolved? Does this not seriously undermine the government’s own credibility?

The pity is that it is not the NDA government but the media that is asking these questions. In the best traditions of babudom, the plan will now be referred to the administrative ministries for ‘‘further consultation’’ and will revert back to the Cabinet in a month’s time. Do not, however, be too surprised if our ministers have third thoughts about it. Stalling has become so deeply embedded in the political system that it is unlikely that the span of 30 days will make a difference.