Opinion Dangerous lies

The real reason why the ‘old India’ refuses to die is because the mindset created in those socialist decades continues to thrive in the ‘new’ India that came into existence after the economic reforms of 1991. It is not just leftist economists and officials who want the old India back but even businessmen who did well out of the crony capitalism spawned by the licence raj.

On public platforms,the ideas of that ‘old’ India are voiced by Marxist and Maoist ‘intellectuals’ who have of late become noisier and more confident. Personally,I have noticed this trend on social networks and in the media only since Anna’s movement. This is ironic since nobody hates his urban,middle-class followers more than real Marxist thinkers like Arundhati Roy.

In the old India,Ms Roy was among a handful of privileged Indians who inhabited a tiny oasis of prosperity in an ocean of desperate poverty. She taught aerobics at the Taj Palace in Delhi and made forgettable films with silly names. As one of the people in her aerobics class,I had opportunity to converse with Ms Roy often and remember her as being astoundingly apolitical. She appears to have developed her whole political philosophy after becoming a celebrated novelist (ex-novelist?) and has a very limited understanding of economic and political issues. Usually,when Outlook magazine publishes her lengthy,long-winded tirades against India,I do not bother to engage her in debate. But,the one that appeared coincidentally with The Economist last week requires rebuttal.

Ms Roy asserts that India’s ‘mega-corporations—Tatas,Jindals,Essar,Reliance,Sterlite’,make most of their money out of exporting minerals. And,‘from their land banks’. This is a lie but a lie that is widely believed as you will discover from five minutes conversation with any of Anna’s followers. The truth is that nobody has been more responsible for irresponsible exploitation of India’s natural resources and land than the bureaucrats of yore in whose hands opponents of India’s new economic policies would have us return the controls of the economy. I know from personal investigation in Bellary that the Jindals tried their best to persuade officials not to allow reckless exports of iron ore. And,if Sterlite had succeeded in building their bauxite refinery in Orissa,the international price of aluminum would have halved and India may have become a centre for the production of this environmentally friendly metal.

The refinery was stopped for confused reasons. Rahul Gandhi believed that he was helping Adivasis save their land. The Minister of Environment suddenly discovered that it violated forest laws. And,the National Advisory Council’s N C Saxena told this newspaper that he would not have recommended closure of the project if it had provided 500 more jobs. Would someone who could invest Rs 11,000 crore in a refinery not have been able to provide 500 more jobs?

It is true that the poorest Indians have been forced off their land for the cause of some major project of supposed national interest like a dam or a highway. It is true that they have not been adequately compensated. But,this was something that could only happen in the old India when omnipotent,omniscient officials controlled the levers of economic power. No private corporation has that kind of power in the new economy.

So if Ms Roy wants to continue perpetuating a lie,may I recommend that she move to Pakistan where she is extremely popular and which is a country ever short of ‘intellectuals’. Would she please take the Army Chief with her since he has done more service to that country’s national interest than he has to ours. On a more serious note,I would like to emphasise that the reason why opponents of India’s new economic policies get away with talking rubbish is because there is nobody speaking up for the economic reforms that have brought such incredible prosperity and change.

Follow Tavleen Singh on Twitter @ tavleen_singh