Promises to keep

If there is a single coherent message delivered by the electorate in this election, it is that populist gestures that are not backed by t...

If there is a single coherent message delivered by the electorate in this election, it is that populist gestures that are not backed by true intent are double-edged weapons. In Punjab, the rout of the Akali-BJP combine owes to a considerable extent to its promises of free electricity and water to farmers. So many years after the Green Revolution, the leaders do not seem to have fathomed the reality that the rural electorate is no longer impoverished.

It will not gratefully pick up every scrap they deign to cast at it. The farmer is now prosperous enough 8212; and politically mature enough 8212; to regard freebies with suspicion. What he wants is not free services but reliable services. He wants to pay 8212; and he wants the government to replace the power transformer that has burned out in his village. He knows that an administration bled dry by freebies will never be able to improve infrastructure. Ergo, such an administration is not in his interest.

A case in point is that of the Punjab Agricultural University,which ushered in the Green Revolution in India and laid to rest the ghost of PL-480 in the Sixties. Today, underfunded by the state government, it has little left over even for basic research at a time when agriculture has come to imply terminator genes, international trade regimes and patent law. When the ambit and implications of the sector are increasing, the trailblazer of agricultural research in India is out for the count. The people of Punjab have clearly voted against the pauperisation of the state, which was once the exemplar of progress.

There are instances elsewhere as well. In Rajasthan, anti-incumbency sentiment owes to the state government8217;s promise to introduce reservation for Jats. About a month ago, the Jat Mahasabha expressed its dissatisfaction over the tardiness of the government in no uncertain terms, and the vote has swung significantly in favour of the BJP. Similarly, in Andhra Pradesh, the people seem to have shrugged off the freebies and subsidies promised by the Congress I.

Thepoor showing of the CPIM, at least in the initial phases of counting in West Bengal are also part of the pattern. While the party has implemented major land reforms in the state and kept farmers happy, the land can support only so many people. Meanwhile, the CPIM8217;s old commitment to militant labour politics has ensured the flight of capital from the state. When capital goes, enterprise usually follows. The result is a state whose people are chronically unemployed or underemployed and which routinely loses its best entrepreneurial talent to more progressive states.

The lesson of this election, then, is that the people are no longer vulnerable to gimcrackery. The penetration of the media has ensured that the electorate knows when political leaders are out to pauperise them under the pretence of helping out. They understand that any largesse will be paid for from funds earmarked for infrastructure, and they would rather have the government provide them with an enabling environment rather than freeservices. The populists should have known better. In this political climate, even Mrs Gandhi8217;s garibi hatao would not have stood a chance.