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Journalism of Courage
In the normal course, I would oppose any new government activity on the grounds that it is probably unnecessary, is likely to increase the power and the influence of an already gargantuan state and is likely to become a source of corruption and rent-seeking. And, of course, it would be a waste of taxpayer8217;s money. The 8220;wasteful8221; argument usually resonates with money.
But I was thinking. There is waste and then there is waste of taxpayer8217;s money. The JNU is a waste. The Lalit Kala Akademi is a waste and besides the spelling is atrocious; the Indian embassy in Peru is a waste does anybody remember the quantum of Indo-Peruvian trade?; the CBI is a waste, if for no other reason than the fact that it has a stellar record of not obtaining convictions; Air-India is a double waste 8212; it guzzles up taxpayer funds and prevents cheap/efficient airlines from flying into India; the Land and Development Office in Delhi is a triple waste 8212; it is costly to run and it persecutes honest citizens and it does its best to prevent development.
I do not oppose the proposed Employment Guarantee Scheme EGS on grounds that it will be wasteful. I accept that most of the benefits will be appropriated or expropriated by dishonest fixers. The 8220;genuinely poor8221; will derive only a fraction of the benefits. There will be millions of ghost beneficiaries. There will be hundreds of thousands of bogus claims and payments. There will be scandals galore and then there will be commissions to investigate the scandals and these commissions will obtain repeated extensions and no one will read their voluminous reports, either in their imperialist English version or in their super-patriotic rashtrabhashic version.
Despite the likelihood of egregious, enormous waste, I support the EGS. This support of an old-fashioned fiscal conservative must come as a surprise to many. My argument is simple. Once we have conceded that waste on a colossal scale is karmically inevitable in India that is Bharat, let us look at the possible positive spin-offs. The mid-day meal programmes in some states must of necessity involve an element of stealing, fudging, corruption, inflated purchases, deflated distributions and so on. And yet, in a country that is so callously indifferent to the children of its poor, the mid-day meal scheme may be one ray of sunshine. Even with the waste, some benefits do get through. The programme improves child nutrition and health; it reduces school drop-out rates; it improves school attendance. Being gender-neutral, it actually benefits the neglected female child. It might even delay early marriages and promote the overall well-being of girls. Its contribution to long-term human capital development is inevitably positive and profound. Here we seek a second order quasi-optimality that happens despite waste, corruption and theft. In fact, once it is in place, even the most dishonest functionaries of the educational bureaucracies in the states cannot discontinue the meals altogether or supply completely inedible food. Public awareness and public opinion do manage to keep a certain check on them.
The EGS will in my opinion operate similarly. Some benefits will get through despite the all-out efforts of the corrupt and slovenly system. Some of the 8220;genuine poor8221; will benefit with the wages and the dignity that go with a regular job. Some capital assets roads, schoolrooms will get built. And the wretched idleness of many of our citizens will get converted into social wealth. The 8220;working poor8221; will consume 8212; and there will be a multiplier effect opening up the poor as market participants not just as spectators of the market. There are surely more efficient and constructive ways to create wealth and disperse purchasing power. But we as a nation are unlikely to opt for them. We will instead spend another ten years in debating as to which theoretical model is the best one. The EGS is not a dole. It is a way to pay wages with dignity. Again, the very fact that there is extensive publicity will ensure that a check however minimal will be kept on the system. Some states, some districts, may actually end up creating assets of value. We must seek our national salvation in modest achievements and hope for unintended positive consequences. For instance, voluntary community initiatives at 8220;employment sites8221; can lead to better schools for the children of the workers and better healthcare provisioning. If the employment activities involve tree-planting or soil conservation, our exhausted land may see a healing touch. One particular activity, I would commend to the EGS babus would be to have armies of people pick up the piles of plastic garbage that is accumulating in tons on the sides of all our country8217;s roads.
The fact of the matter is that after 51 years of central planning, after pampering the occupants of the commanding heights of our economy 8212; the Air-Indias, the SAILS and the LICs 8212; we have squandered money but not provided an atmosphere where our citizens can obtain fruitful occupations. There is no doubt that from an efficiency perspective growth in private sector employment, particularly self-employment, would be preferable. But having accepted the inevitability of waste, I see it as a moral imperative for the state to direct some of its wasteful expenditure not only to subsidise the middle class with cheap cooking gas or the aristocracy of public sector unionised labour with sinecures8230;some of this money can and should be used for direct intervention to help the poor, not with charity, but with jobs. One could even argue that such state intervention is in the best traditions of Indian rulers8230;Ashoka, Rajaraja, Sher Shah and Krishnarajendra. My conservative soul is amply persuaded by the moral argument and the historical examples. Efficiency be damned. Let8217;s try this!
The writer is chairman/CEO of Mphasis, a company in the IT/BPO space. He8217;s also currently chairman of NASSCOM
