Opinion Consensus on Growth
At the start of the 21st century,it looked like this would be Indias century.
At the start of the 21st century,it looked like this would be Indias century. Western journalists and NRIs poured out books of wonderment. India was already or soon to be a superpower,matching,perhaps surpassing,China. Head of governments of G7 sought invitations and contracts. Bollywood was flooded with foreign money,everyone wanting a piece of India.
Now on the 65th anniversary of Independence what we see is more than tragic. Mumbai,which once used to be an iconic city called Bombay,was meant to take on Shanghai as the global hub. We saw what local parochial politics has done to the city last week. Bombay Police used to be good; Mumbai Police had orders not to do its job seriously. Vote banks are more precious than policemen and womens lives.
Assam burns and will go on burning for a while yet. Scores of Bodo youth who had migrated out for jobs in the mainland are heading back. What they will do there is not certain but at the very least the demographic balance will be shifted in the favour of Bodo even as the unemployment situation gets worse. No one has the honesty to say that all immigrants are welcome,whether Hindus from Pakistan or Muslims from Bangladesh. People migrate to India from neighbouring nations because despite all the problems India has,it is a better place to live than where they come from. But we have to do better.
There is a resource war going on in Assam as elsewhere. Those Bodo youth who had left Assam in search of better prospects were responding to the failure of development which has not created enough good jobs for the unskilled. India protects the few thousands in the organised sector with 147 labour laws and lets millions rot in the informal sector. The mai-baap Socialists of Congress can then feel virtuous when contract workers revolt against bad wages and conditions as they did in Manesar. Better to have no contract labour and let people sink into unemployment than give them contract jobs. Or reform labour laws.
The Prime Minister said from the Red Fort that India needed a consensus on growth or else its national security will suffer. The lack of consensus on growth is within the UPA itself since TMC is against all reform legislation. Even within the Congress,the tension between the NAC and PMs Economic Advisory Council is well known.
There is more agreement between Congress and BJP on economics than on anything else. There was a lot of continuity on growth matters between NDA and UPA-I. Congress could get its legislation on pensions etc through a deal with the BJP.
Of course,there will be no such deal. The next election is far too near and each side will linger with its delusions. The BJP has the delusion that there is a Hindu majority out there in the country and it only needs a platform to mobilise it. Hence the mutual back scratching at Ramlila grounds of two weak partners who need each other to succeed. BJP has fond memories of the agitation launched by JP. It hopes that the anti-corruption platform of Anna Hazare and Ramdev will revive that spirit. But neither Hazare nor Ramdev have either the status or the political credentials of JP. Corruption alas is not the monopoly of UPA. Even the BJPs poster boy Narendra Modi is now tarred with allegation of corruption by one of his ministers.
Congress has hopes of coming back because of its success in the Presidential elections. But many of the partners even at the core of UPA are itching to cut loose; hence the agitation by Sharad Pawar and the continuing sulking by Mamata Banerjee. Nor will Mulayam Yadav necessarily stay the course and even if he does,two more years of Akhilesh Yadav will destroy the SPs hold over UP. With high inflation and low growth,Congress has little to offer.
The most likely outcome will be a third party coalition with outside support by BJP or Congress. Would it not be better if BJP and Congress combined and kept all the third parties out? That government could deliver growth and national security.
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