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Journalism of Courage
A few left-handed compliments are in order. At the end of a most unedifying controversy over the induction of “foreign” experts in Planning Commission consultative groups, a few words of gratitude to the Left parties may be well-deserved. In driving the Commission to extreme steps, perhaps the Left was being more reformist than even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s dream team. At present, all 19 consultative groups set up by the deputy chairperson of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, as part of the mid-term appraisal of the Tenth Plan, stand disbanded. Nothing much, really. The case has been made earlier that the Left’s campaign against the 15 “foreign” experts among a total of 430 on these panels amounted to misplaced paranoia and outright hypocrisy. These 19 groups were simply debating circles and had no decision-making or advisory powers. Hence, now in their being disbanded not much has changed substantially. But revolutions, as the comrades know only too well, are often ignited by little sparks.
This recourse to disband could catch on. It could help cut the flab at Yojana Bhavan. A sustained rethink could transform the Planning Commission from a committee-infested relic of socialist days to a leaner, more responsive panel in rhythm with the market-friendly and micro-economic demands of the times. The communists, it could then appear, are simply economic reformers in disguise. Could be. But for now the bewilderment among the Left parties is telling. The government has unequivocally called their bluff. Along with the 15 “foreign” experts, their own economists and ideological fellow travellers have been sent packing. To be heard and to be consulted have become something of a mission with the Left parties. Now the Commission is free to solicit opinion from any quarter, without being compelled to go public on the experts consulted.
Besides, by allowing their agitation to verge on post-colonial xenophobia, the Left parties have put their own government in West Bengal in a bit of a spot. Buddhadeb Bhattacharya’s administration has harnessed expertise from “foreign” agencies like the World Bank and McKinsey. By invoking the spectre of surrendered sovereignty at Yojana Bhavan, they have bared themselves to interrogation on this doublespeak. In coalition, brinkmanship is an ace that can be played only occasionally. Having exercised that option on such a trivial matter, the Left should now finally pipe down and allow the UPA government to get on with its job unfettered by the ideological predilections of its allies “from the outside”.
