Strike out strikes

The usual suspects are back to their blackmailing tactics. The All India Cable TV Forum is on an indefinite nation-wide strike over the 10 per cent service tax imposed on cable network companies in this year8217;s budget. This, despite the fact that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India had lifted the freeze on cable television subscription rates. The truckers 8212; those perpetual creators of road blocks 8212; also plan to follow suit in a few days8217; time. Again on the issue of service tax. This is plainly ridiculous and unacceptable.

The issue is straightforward. No modernising economy can afford not to tax the services sector. Over 70 per cent of India8217;s incremental GDP over the last ten years has emanated from this sector. It is therefore in the fitness of things that those who have gained from this new prosperity 8212; cable companies and transporters certainly figure in this category 8212; should pay their taxes without throwing tantrums and announcing crippling strikes. After all, a reforming and viable economy is in their interests as well. If cable operators and truckers believe that these taxes will render their operations unviable, they are always free to opt out of the business. To hold the hapless consumer hostage to their bid to protect their own interests is a lowdown tactic, plain and simple, and the UPA government should not succumb to it at any cost. To do so would invite copycat action from other lobbies. This would, in turn, lead to the unravelling of budget strategies, put a spoke in the wheel of taxation reform, besides of course sending out the unedifying message that the Manmohan Singh government is prepared to give in to the slightest pressure. The BJP is certainly not helping the situation by attempting to fish in these troubled waters. By terming taxes on cable TV as 8220;unfair8221; and 8220;unnecessary8221;, it hopes no doubt to curry favour with its constituents but only ends up appearing anti-reformist and protectionist.

Strikes, in any case, cannot be an answer to solving issues of this nature given the long term damage they can inflict on the economy. In his Walk the Talk interview, CPM8217;s elder statesman and Lok Sabha speaker, Somnath Chatterjee, actually agreed that unmitigated trade unionism can be suicidal, and that bandhs are not always the right way to protest. The weeks ahead will prove whether the Left-controlled trade unions have actually imbibed any of this wisdom but we are, in the meanwhile, being treated to the CITU-isation of the private sector with those who have benefitted from reform and the opening up of markets adopting the most regressive methods of agitational politics. They must not be allowed to get away with this.