Populist fizz

Kerals8217;s heavy-handed and self-defeating stance of banning the manufacture and consumption of colas should have cautioned other state governments about the dangers of such impromptu and irrational action. It seems, instead, to have nudged some of them into considering similar steps. When last heard, both Arunachal Pradesh and Punjab were contemplating a possible ban on cola drinks, apart of course from seven states that have already banished them from government-run schools, colleges and hospitals.

Such a move smacks of an unthinking pro-activism, where a ban becomes a lazy substitute for the much tougher and immeasurably more useful job of regulating the health standards of all products meant for human consumption on a continuous basis. If food safety is indeed the concern then by all means ensure that your laws to tackle food adulteration and contamination have the necessary efficacy. But bans, by their very nature, are blunt instruments. They bear the imprimatur of a dangerous populism, whether they are deployed to banish a literary or cultural work from the public sphere, or whether they are meant to signal a desire to shore up the 8216;revolutionary8217; credentials of a state government, as appears to be the case in Kerala.

The economic backlash that could well follow in the wake of such misguided state intervention has not even been factored in. The real worry 8212; and India Inc is not alone in voicing it 8212; is that such arbitrary, lawless moves would take the sheen off India as an attractive investment destination and threatens to slow down investment flows. What is to stop an American state, for instance, from banning outsourcing to India on some pretext or the other. In today8217;s world of intensely competitive markets, where even communist nations have understood the need for sustainable flows of foreign investment, hide-bound attitudes and political action on the part of a state government do nobody any good. Least of all, its citizens.