Opinion Imagining a silence,missing the point

The slowdown in highway construction has been due to a fall in private investment because of global factors,hardly a domestic trend. Taking advantage of the slowdown,the UPA government acted wisely in bringing the land acquisition bill to address the legitimate concerns of land owners. There is more to roads than highways. Rural roads have seen exponential expansion.

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Read more on this debate:

While we were silent: Pratab Bhanu Mehta

The deformists: Shekhar Gupta

Note to UPA-bashers: Shashi Tharoor

A people in despair,a government in wonderland: Madhu Trehan

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There’s more to the aviation sector than just Air India. FDI in the sector and regulatory reforms are showing results. Tata-Air Asia and Jet-Etihad are the first signs of the anticipated boost to the aviation sector. Concessions made in the Union budget on aircraft parts and equipment,and exemption of customs duty on spares,are set to transform the maintenance,repairs and operations business. According to the Planning Commission,power capacity went up by 159 per cent in the 11th Plan. The projected increase under the 12th Plan is 60 per cent. Sixty million households were electrified in the last decade.

The opposition to the RTE is that it was promulgated after 100 per cent enrolment was achieved. This observation can only have come from people whose worldview of rural areas is shaped by occasional trips to Neemrana. Enrolment figures in rural areas are mostly fudged. Coupled with the midday meal,the RTE will prove to be a game changer.

MGNREGA has revolutionised the rural landscape and changed the destinies of 48 million households. Distress migration has come down. Rural wages have gone up. The UPA had aimed to improve living standards of the rural poor by improving their purchasing power. As a result,the per capita consumption in rural areas has risen. For the first time in 25 years,rural consumption outpaced urban consumption by 80 per cent. The Mihir Shah committee has further strengthened MGNREGA to create productive assets and allow small and marginal,SC/ ST farmers to employ MGNREGA workers on their farms. The programme’s biggest achievement is that it standardised and enforced minimum wage across India. Those who are miffed with the newfound confidence of the rural migrant youth may perhaps vote for the BJP to stop this aggressive and positive change.

Food security was a promise made in the Congress manifesto. MGNREGA and the food security bill together account for less than 1.5 per cent of our GDP annually. There is no need to speak about the poor as an alibi for such welfare schemes. No one with any experience of seeing a poor man eat will oppose this scheme.

The assertion that the Congress has subverted institutions is hurried and inaccurate. The CAG isn’t the only institution that slowed down governance work due to fears of witch hunts. An army general tried to undermine the great institution of the army and came close to destroying the relationship between the forces and the civilian administration. People have seen who has been sabotaging Parliament on television over the last two years. By 2015,there will be metro services in 15 cities. By 2014,under the National Optic Fibre Network,2.5 lakh villages will have broadband facilities. Over 137 million households were connected to telephony in the last decade,with mobile affordability in India being the cheapest. When the CAG was busy justifying notional losses,millions of telephones were buzzing in the countryside.

The UPA government did not aim to silence people by going on a PR offensive. People spoke when they had to. And they were heard when they spoke. Cameras and candles have given new voice to the people. Never before has any government faced the kind of assertion that the UPA did. When was the last time anyone saw protesters laying siege to Rashtrapati Bhawan? Swati,the girl who entered Rashtrapati Bhawan,is not behind bars for entering a high security area,because the government understood the anger of the people. In the heart of Delhi,the India Gate hexagon was taken over by tricolour-bearing youth. Could there have been such protests by riot victims on the streets of Gujarat? This government acknowledged the people’s right to be angry. It responded to the anger. The anti-rape bill is not just a landmark bill for its content,it is the first bill that came about as a response to people’s anger.

The BJP can project Narendra Modi,who equates Muslims with puppies,as a prime ministerial candidate. But if the Congress tries to reassure the minorities,it is accused of playing the communal card.

UPA 2 has restored the importance of the voice of people. They no longer have to wait for elections to be heard. But India’s rights revolution is lost on our Neemrana-inspired intellectuals,who fight for the right to park their cars and the right to a guard at their gate. The last four years of India’s democracy have been promising — an exciting chapter where citizens and the state have been locked in a loud and healthy debate. The state acknowledged the importance of the voice of people,rather than just the voice of the vote. And all that Mehta heard was silence?

The writer is political secretary to the chief minister,Delhi