Some politics please

Politics first 8212; that would be a good summary of the action-reaction controversy over the prime minister8217;s speech at the National Development Council. At one level, there8217;s nothing wrong with either the Congress or the BJP 8216;politicising8217; a particular strand of social development policy, and with both keeping an eye on coming UP elections. That is not only because the din has produced some interesting arguments 8212; for example, from Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Jaswant Singh 8212; but also because in a ferociously competitive electoral democracy it is silly and self-defeating to expect that big questions can be answered without politics intervening. Economic reforms, to take an instructive example, have been politicised almost from the beginning. They had to be. It is simply not true that had politics not been a factor there would have been more reforms. Minus politics, there would have been no reforms.

So the key question is not politics but what kind of politics. Reforms politics, despite frequent reactionary episodes, has been mature. Otherwise, almost everyone 8212; from Bhattacharjee in Bengal to Hooda in Haryana and Modi in Gujarat to Reddy in Karnataka 8212; wouldn8217;t be wanting to reform. Politics around and about Muslims, in sad contrast, has been persistently immature. And that immaturity is reflected in the current controversy as well. Both the Congress and the BJP are working on the assumption that it is not necessary to interrogate far less try to change the accepted wisdom that Muslims vote en bloc, only that different kinds of hooks are needed at different points of time.

This is precisely why, as our columnist today argues, supposedly sectarian outfits sometimes talk of issues that determine the living condition of the poor Muslim but mainstream parties deploy serial rhetoricians. One of the most important questions of Indian politics is, when will established parties get a different message? Will it be via off-mainstream, identity-based outfits starting to reflect the poor Muslim8217;s real demands? That may serve as a wake-up call. But it must be said this is not the best answer to the question. The best way is to first recognise that governments, whether at the Centre or in states, can8217;t be the major agency of social uplift. Muslims aren8217;t really part of India8217;s private sector-led growth. Conditions for increasing their participation must be created. What is the best way to do that? Mature politics over this question would be welcome.