Shining India, Dismal Bharat

The India versus Bharat debate is nothing new. In the early 1980s, Charan Singh, self-styled champion of rural India, even brought out a magazine called Asli Bharat that railed against the shallow pretensions and misplaced arrogance of a narrow urban elite.

But that was then. The big story of the last decade, amplified many times over by the mass media in recent years, was that Shining India was no longer narrow nor urban nor elite. Millions of rural, semi-rural and semi-urban people too were now part of the Great Indian Middle Class, living out dreams never dreamt by their parents less than a generation ago.

No one quite defined the parameters of this new middle class nor put a figure on their numbers. But it was assumed 8212; at least by the ruling BJP 8212;that the numbers were large enough, that the prosperity had spread deep enough, for 8220;Shining India8221; to become a central motif of the party8217;s election campaign.

So struck was the BJP leadership by the slick images beamed by Brand India that L.K. Advani, by his own admission, actually coined the phrase 8220;feel good8221; on the basis of the 8220;feel great8221; Raymonds ad.

In retrospect, it might seem laughable that a political strategist of Advani8217;s acumen could have been inspired by advertisements for a very expensive suiting brand in a country where impoverished women still kill themselves for five and a half yards of cloth costing less than Rs 50.

But you cannot blame him alone. Thousands of us, living in Mumbai and Delhi and Bangalore and Lakhimpur, Tirupur and Jagdalpur too, bought into that 8220;feel good8221; dream, and some of us lived it too. We were bombarded by good news like never before 8212; the foreign exchange reserves were booming, the Sensex was zooming, housing and car loans were getting cheaper by the day, glitzy malls teeming by night, and the BPO miracle was here to stay.

Even our movies, that great barometer of popular mood, had changed. Forget the black and white preachy fables of the Raj Kapoor era, that angry young man of the seventies, fighting valiantly against a corrupt and unjust system, too had metamorphosed into a fun-loving ageless cool dude. Starting with Hum Apke Hain Kaun in the mid-1990s to the current favourite Main Hoon Na, box office hits were all about having fun and looking good 8212; without even a passing mention to all that old boring stuff about 8220;garibi8221; and 8220;insaf8221;.

Occasionally, bad news about drought and distress and de-industrialisation trickled in but we dismissed them as just so much jaded jabber of Jurassic jholawallahs, the petulant diatribe of discredited socialists long past their prime.

And then the elections had to rudely intervene. As politicians travelled into the vast hinterland, and reporters and pollsters followed suit, it slowly became clear that for the unwashed millions lying in the penumbra of our pink-tinted vision, the shine wasn8217;t even skin-deep, 8220;feel good8221; mostly a term of abuse. Yes, this election was about development alright, but mostly about the lack of it, and not the hoped for celebration about five years of achievement.

It is not as though India has not changed. That static, stagnant, fatalistic India of yore is no more, not even in the heart of Uttar Pradesh or Bihar. There is a new restlessness, a palpable desire to lead better lives, realise happier dreams.

The first reason, therefore, that the 8220;feel good8221; factor failed was that it was swamped by the 8220;want to feel good8221; sentiment. Stirred by images of the good life and stoked by the promises of politicians, dreams quickly turn to frustration these days. That is why leaders who make tall claims and sell big dreams 8212; Chandrababu Naidu or S.M. Krishna, Digivijay Singh or the NDA top brass 8212; are that much more prone to face the wrath of the electorate.

The second, more important, reason is that for all the achievements of the 8220;new economy8221;, it has not been able to offset the pain wrought by the destruction of the old economy. If lack of irrigation and power continue to be the chief causes of distress in rural India, the closure of thousands of manufacturing units leading to millions of job losses across the country is the recurring theme that can be read between the lines of almost every election reporter8217;s copy. The success of the IT and service sector may be dazzling, but it can hardly make indebted farmers or retrenched workers feel good about the economy.

The real questions this election has thrown up are: can India afford a high growth, low jobs trajectory? If Shining India is premised on short-term pain for long-term gain, how short is the term? How inclusive the ultimate gain? The new middle class may be strong enough to sustain a lucrative market but can the poor be airbrushed away?

No matter who comes to power in New Delhi, the economic reforms will continue. The reforms process has gained a momentum, fostered a mind-set, that does not allow for any U-turns. But Elections 2004 has forcefully underlined that India cannot achieve the critical mass necessary to propel itself into the 8220;developed nation8221; category when huge masses of its people remain critically underdeveloped or unemployed. As long as India follows the one man, one vote and not one share, one vote principle, purely market-driven reforms can never make for good politics. It cannot, India Inc be warned, make for good economics either.