It is not good form to say we told you so in public debates. But sometimes the urge is strong. When the NDA was defeated in 2004, the pundits’ majority verdict was that the loss was thanks to the rural poor’s protest against reforms-engendered inequality. A leftish British newspaper had editorialised about India’s ‘peasant revolt’. Many, and more evocative, Indian variations were produced, too. Now, the Planning Commission has crunched National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) numbers and concluded that between 1999-2000 and 2004-2005 — the NDA period — poverty declined and rural poverty declined more sharply. Surely, no one is going to argue that the UPA-appointed Planning Commission leadership is deliberately massaging the data to flatter the NDA? Therefore, can we start applying closure to the ‘reformists lose the vote of the poor’ debate? What else can we conclude?First, and this can’t be said often enough, growth successfully attacks poverty. India’s GDP grew, by today’s standards, at a somewhat modest pace in that period. The growth rate was 7.5 per cent in 2003-2004, but it didn’t touch 6 per cent in the three preceding years. This should tell the UPA that when the economy is growing at 8-9 per cent, the impact of rural poverty should be even sharper. When the prime minister has spoken about growth as the biggest antidote to poverty, he has attracted polite but severe scepticism from many of his party colleagues. Gift-wrapped copies of the Planning Commission report should be immediately dispatched to them.Second, and this doesn’t spare the PM or the Planning Commission, let us remember that while the UPA scores over the NDA in trying out a targeted national jobs programme — credible research data indicates rural purchasing power has increased in states successfully implementing the scheme — the NDA did much better in the road building project. Roads are a great anti-poverty scheme, because they increase the poor’s access to jobs, markets and services. If poverty declined during the NDA’s rule in the absence of a well-targeted national welfare scheme, an effective road-building programme is a major part of the detailed explanation. The Planning Commission is part of the bureaucratic battles holding up road construction under the UPA. And the PM needs to use his authority to, as it were, clear the road, just as he did during airport reform. Good roads lead you to the aam aadmi.
