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Journalism of Courage
John Milton wrote a great poem about the ancient Hebrew warrior, Samson. It was called 8216;Samson Agonistes8217; and portrays a Samson in agony as he is held captive by his Philistine tormentors. It is useful to look at great literary classics when one wants to contemplate contemporary parallels.
Montek Singh Ahluwalia reminds me a little of Samson 8220;at the mill8221; in Gaza. His leftist tormentors accuse him of being unpatriotic and unmatriotic sounds vaguely leftwing and politically correct in these days of gender neutrality. Comrade Jyoti Basu has reminded us of Montek8217;s Original Sin8230; he once worked for the World Bank and on account of this sin he is condemned forever! It could have been worse. Montek could have worked for a money grubbing, evil multinational. It8217;s bad enough that he worked for the imperialist, neo-colonialist, evil World Bank. Even if Montek were to ride an Ambassador car to work I sincerely and devoutly hope that he does not, it will be seen as a dark, sinister, hidden, Machiavellian imperialist plot born in Washington D.C. and nurtured in Manila.
Let8217;s look at it this way. The 8220;Planning8221; Commission was established when people believed that commissars in the Kremlin knew more about the workings of the economy than ordinary individual economic agents like you and I. The omniscient commissars told the citizens sorry, subjects of the great Soviet state how many left shoes to produce and these orders were followed8230;any failure resulted in exile in the Siberian wilderness. Things have changed. We are all anti-Stalinists now8230;presumably even Comrade Basu. There is no reason to believe that secretaries, additional secretaries, joint secretaries, deputy secretaries and under-secretaries in Delhi know more about how the economy should run than anyone else. Au contraire, there is every reason to believe that the aforementioned categories of secretaries as well as directors, joint directors, deputy directors, assistant directors, section officers, superintendents, upper division clerks and lower division clerks can easily win the Nobel prize for ignorance of economics, the only contenders being leftist economists an oxymoron 8212; how can you be a leftist and an economist? from JNU. So why not just disband this exalted commission and let the hapless citizens of India get on with their lives?
It is interesting to note that no developed/rich/affluent country has or ever had a Planning Commission. So planning clearly has not had development/wealth/affluence as its goal. If it is poverty that planning is supposed to create, we have done a spectacular job in India. Throughout its existence, our Planning Commission has presided over our being systematically and continually overtaken in the development race by Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, People8217;s China and even Indonesia8230;all countries who were in living memory on a par or behind us and all of whom seem to do well without a Planning Commission. Montek can issue a 8216;declaration of victory8217; statement..8221; the Planning Commission has fulfilled its objective of ensuring that India remains poorer than these other countries. We have successfully planned for poverty and have emerged as laggards in the development race. Now we can dissolve ourselves.8221;
Clearly, we must expect opposition to this move. The first to oppose it will be the worthy members of the 8220;Planning Commission Employees Association8221;. Their objection will be for entirely unselfish patriotic/matriotic reasons. We must therefore respond to their objections with equal patriotic/matriotic fervour. We must assign all these worthy employees of the government of the sovereign democratic republic of India to the worthy task of teaching India8217;s future citizens. There is reportedly an acute shortage of teachers in the municipal schools in and around Delhi. With no change in salary or perquisites, we can now ask the Planning Commission employees to teach in these schools. There can be no left wing objections to imperialist, neo-colonialist redundancies. And who can deny that state schools are short of teachers? And where there are teachers on the payroll, they are frequently absent. Planning Commission ex-employees will, doubtless, be excellent replacements for perennially absent teachers.
The more sinister and difficult opposition will come from other8221;members8221; of the august commission. After all, these are interesting sinecures and parking spots for people between other noteworthy jobs and assignments. Commission members get a modest salary, good housing in Delhi, staff cars, air-conditioned or is it air-cooled? offices, generous travel allowances including frequent trips to neo-colonial, imperialist destinations like New York and London. To shut down the Commission and deprive these eminent persons of hard-won perquisites will definitely lead to strong resistance from them. I have a startlingly simple suggestion. Why not give them all their pay and perquisites. Just ask them not to come to the office each day. They can have fun and they will not do any damage to India8217;s citizenry!
Samson physically destroyed the temple in Gaza. Montek can simply put Yojana Bhavan on sale. In order not to create more furore about illegitimate privatisation, he can specify that the only organisations allowed to bid for ownership for the Yojana Bhavan building will be registered political parties and, if the financial bids are equal, the party with the shrillest anti-imperialist credentials will be given preference. Montek can feel happy that the proceeds from the sale of the great building will help reduce the otherwise untenable fiscal deficit of our great government and that Yojana Bhavan will be put to good use by anti-colonial politicos.
Of course the greatest favour he will do is to eliminate this dirigiste statist institution that has planned our poverty8230;hopefully unshackling and awakening our country into a new dawn of freedom.
The writer is chairman/CEO of MphasiS, a company in the IT/BPO space. He is currently chairman, NASSCOM. These are his personal views
