Two years, too lost

This week the UPA government completes two years in office. So, where are the festivities? By all indicators, the air in New Delhi should be purposefully celebratory. The recent mini-general election in the form of four key state assembly polls split the spoils neatly among the UPA8217;s constituents and its allies. The coalition government led by Dr Manmohan Singh is suffused with prognoses of robust longevity. And yet, a gathering disarray is tangible within this governmental stability. It would be facile to read it in the stockmarket crash of Monday. It would be gaining only a part profile to see it in the sustained street protests for and against Mandal II. The larger picture is found in a dilemma. As antidote to the sudden onset of visible disarray, the prime minister and the Congress party, which leads the UPA alliance, need to address a question: is the alliance militating against itself in a blind search for a centre of gravity?

Anniversaries are apt moments to take a long political view, and it gives that question a worrisome edge: is the Congress opting out of a strenuous interrogation of its present agenda and lurching for the old comforts of its seventies socialism? Far too much of the party8217;s leadership is weighing in on the side of re-installation of statist paternalism. The issue of reservations 8212; in higher education and in private sector jobs 8212; is illustrative. What is being recommended to augment and strengthen social infrastructure is an old quick-fix: slice the existing pie and commandeer private decision-making in a symbolic jab at equity. It is reminiscent of those absurd ceilings on the productivity of manufacturing units. The reforms, initiated after Indira Gandhi8217;s return to power in 1980 and consolidated in the 1990s, showed the huge returns to be got by enabling overall growth. It is strange then that the Congress8217;s instinct now appears to be to deliver its promised new social contract by similar regulation 8212; instead of enabling social inclusiveness through focussed investment in education and incentivising private-public partnership.

At two years, a government typically heads into the mid-term stretch, its eye on the platform it must construct for re-election in three years8217; time. The prime minister has repeatedly said the right things about meaningful equity through reform. Now is the time to act upon them. Because, as V.P. Singh found out earlier, there is no gratitude to be had from the electorate by recourse to reservation as an easy substitute for enlightened targeting.