Far from home

It might be recalled that it was the United Front government that discovered that the Urban Land Ceiling and Regulation Act ULCRA had o...

It might be recalled that it was the United Front government that discovered that the Urban Land Ceiling and Regulation Act ULCRA had outlived its usefulness and ought to be repealed. Now, Minister for Urban Development Ram Jethmalani is trying to take the process to its logical conclusion. And in an amazing display of political opportunism, 64 members of the United Front government8217;s constituent parties who are now in the opposition are doing everything in their power and straining shamelessness to its theoretical limits to prevent him.

In their memorandum to the President, they reveal that they are riven by quot;serious concernquot; about the quot;adverse effect it would have on low and middle income groups.quot; It is strange and wonderful that this concern should manifest itself when they are out of office, not when they were part of a government that claimed to rule on behalf of the poor. Not one of them has offered a cogent reason for the volte face except former Welfare Minister B.S. Ramoowalia. And he claimsthat it is known only to Shabana Azmi, MP, the prime mover of this mass conversion. A fine state of affairs in a nation where housing shortages have reached crisis point.

The fact that power corrupts has been known for at least two thousand years. Now, a new correlation emerges: being out of power often perverts. The present government is in the process of achieving what the United Front for all its good intentions never could: dismantling the archaic laws that have trammelled the growth of the economy and of the nation. FERA is on its way out. A national housing policy is open for discussion. It will try to make housing an attractive investment, especially for overseas funds and loan agencies.

Effectively, the role of the government will be reduced to that of a benign facilitator. It will be part of the system, not a superior, minatory presence whose principal function is the imposition of controls. Will the former big noises of the United Front government take it upon themselves to oppose thesechanges also? After all, the repeal of ULCRA is consonant with the new housing policy. And the repeal of FERA, again, is in the direction of reducing governmental interference in minor transactions. Will those MPs who are opposing the repeal of ULCRA also move against these progressive measures when they are discussed in the House? Logically, they would have to, if only in the interests of consistency.

Fortunately, none of them is either logical or consistent. As noted earlier, they have not been able to explain their tergiversation. There is only some petty grousing concerning Ram Jethmalani8217;s temerity. Apparently, he had no business writing individually to the members of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Urban Affairs, to whom the issue has been referred. However, they are not quite able to explain precisely why this act was so dastardly. Unfortunately, this is entirely a case of political opportunism, at the cost of the millions of tenants and homeless people who live in India.