Good news is possible

On his annual winter holiday in Goa, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee must borrow and read a book or two on how the beleaguered Deng fought his way back to power and glory, battling conservative political elements within his own party, riding on a wave of economic reform and growth-augmenting economic policies.

Vajpayee must also read up whatever he can on the life and times of another leader, the failed Russian reformer Boris Yeltsin. The manner in which an ailing Yeltsin was unable and unwilling to handle pressure from the International Monetary Fund and the United States and was sustained in office by an army of doctors and the manner in which the younger Vladimir Putin sent him into retirement.

Nursing his wounds from Gujarat, where he was unabashedly mauled by his party8217;s stormtroopers and the sangh parivar8217;s intemperate bigots, Prime Minister Vajpayee must use the Goa sojourn to decide whether he wants to return to New Delhi as Atal Yeltsin or Deng Vajpayee.

Will he revive the political fortunes of the Bharatiya Janata Party by giving a free hand to forces that are bound to challenge his supremacy within the party, forcing him to abandon sensible economic policies and pursue irrational and sectarian political and social policies? Or will he do a Deng?

When Vajpayee took time out and went on a year-end retreat to Kumarakom in Kerala, he returned with a Nehruvian treatise on secularism and India8217;s national identity. He widened his party8217;s political constituency and extended the longevity of his tenuous coalition.

When he took off the next year on vacation, he returned with a treatise on Kashmir. From Goa, Vajpayee must return, like Deng did in 1992 from his tour of southern China, with a perspective on economic reform.

Perhaps the idea has already occurred to Vajpayee. Consider the pictures of the prime minister that have appeared in the media last week, after the Gujarat verdict. One day he is presiding over a meeting of the National Development Council that approves a Five Year plan targeted to push the rate of growth of the economy to 8 per cent. Another day he is inaugurating the Delhi Metro. Then he is flying off to open a railway project and yet again to open a highway project.

Infrastructure. Each major engagement of the prime minister was about the economy. No minority-bashing, no whining about pseudo-secularism and no obsession with Mian Musharraf.

When he returns from his holiday, one of his first foreign visitors will be the foreign minister of Japan. He can resume a dialogue on boosting bilateral economic cooperation. Massive Japanese investment into India8217;s infrastructure can have a hugely positive impact on the economy. Then there is the Pravasi Bharatiya mela 8212; a gathering of 8216;people of Indian origin8217;.

Vajpayee must resist the temptation of harping on globalising Hindutva. Rather, the attempt should be to get Indians worldwide to invest in India, like China8217;s diaspora has done.

Business, investment, trade, economy. For the next one year Vajpayee must talk about nothing else. Good news is possible on the economic front in 2003. There is an economic turnaround happening. Most economic analysts and business leaders are convinced that the economy has bottomed out and while 2002-03 may record a modest 5 per cent to 5.5 per cent growth, 2003 will see an acceleration.

It will not be the 8 per cent Vajpayee wants, and he was wrongly advised to set that unrealistic target for the Tenth Plan, but 6 per cent to 7 per cent over a five year period is doable and decent.

Deng Vajpayee will empower his council of ministers by placing doers in charge of key economic ministries. He will reach out for talent wherever it is available without worrying whether it comes from within the sangh parivar8217;s fold. Instead of wasting the talent of a Suresh Prabhu on a silly and non-doable idea like linking all rivers, he will place him in-charge of a major infrastructure project. He will set up a control room in the prime minister8217;s office to monitor progress on the national highway and railway projects. He will use the comfort of rising foreign exchange reserves to push for bolder external economic liberalisation. He will use low inflation to push for fiscal activism to step up growth.

Like the late Deng of 1990-93, the Vajpayee of 2003 will think of pushing for growth in 2003 and pushing the Indian economy on to a higher long-term growth path. He will let other leaders worry about winning the next election the way they want to. His winning strategy will be to place the economy at centre-stage.

If Vajpayee chickens out and backs off, he will go the Yeltsin way 8212;remembered for ending one phase in Indian history, but not for beginning another.

In the long history of Russia, Gorbachev dismantled communism, Yeltsin dismantled a super power by not understanding what Deng was all about. Deng understood that the secret of power in the modern world is economic resilience and strength. A superpower is not built with nukes and borrowed money. It is built on the back of a growing economy.

Bad days are over for the Indian economy, but if the bad politics of Gujarat continues, they can easily return. Returning to Delhi from Goa, Vajpayee can show that the sun can also rise from the west.