One-party state?

The World Economic Forums India meeting in New Delhi featured some thoughtful panels,speeches and ideas. But it was difficult to avoid the fear that what we were seeing was a disturbing exercise in crony capitalism. The speakers,the panels,the discussions all conveyed a disturbing impression,that India is a one-party state of some sort. The Opposition was frozen out. Nor were there prominent voices from the Congress UPA allies. An occasion for business and politics to question each other becomes one where business humbly submits an agenda for action to the dominant party in power. What else is that but banana-republic crony capitalism?

The Davos meeting of the WEF,in January every year,is a wonderfully eclectic event where a broad diversity of thought is brought to bear on some timely theme. In the past,India summits have shown a similar approach. But many local summits,in partnership with local bodies,too often descend into exercises in statist pageantry. This is the direction in which the WEF,and the Confederation of Indian Industry,have made the mistake of taking the India summit this year. The WEF needs to wake up to one basic fact: India is not China or Singapore. Indias is the most diverse polity in the world. So,WEF,if you try thinking about policy while ignoring that,youre condemning yourself to eventual irrelevance. Talk to just the Union cabinet while ignoring dynamic CMs,and youll miss the basics of the India story.

Tragically the lessons of the past have not taken hold. Indian industry many of whose leaders were cringingly obsequious at the meeting about the absolute wonderfulness of the government and its plans for the future has allowed itself to be stuck in an old,pre-

reform sense of what is necessary to do business in India. The party in power has to be placated and pleased and praised. But India is maturing. Today the smug commissars of commerce might believe that the Congress will rule for twenty years. But they have been wrong before. After all,when the NDA was in power,and the Congress appeared a hopeless floppy opposition,these same captains of industry crowded on to the stage with Narendra Modi at the same meeting,barely a year and a half after the Gujarat riots. Things have turned since then,havent they? And in India,they will turn again. Unless Indias corporate sector grows as least as mature as Indias democracy,it will find itself behind the curve all too often,locked into supplication rather than partnership. Nor,when it comes the time to grow into more mature markets,will the subservient attitude fostered here help them deal with ruling parties that dont expect fawning.