Opinion The economy,not Anna
We deserve Anna Hazare. As an implacable opponent of his movement and his methods,it is with sadness that I admit that my relentless opposition has been wasted.
We deserve Anna Hazare. As an implacable opponent of his movement and his methods,it is with sadness that I admit that my relentless opposition has been wasted. Did you notice the frenzy that gripped my colleagues in the electronic media when he reappeared last week? Did you see how they raced off to Ralegan Siddhi for another round of identical exclusive interviews? Anna looked quite recovered from his hunger strike and ready for more action. He was off to Hissar,he said proudly,to tell voters not to vote for Congress. Then he would extend his mission to Uttar Pradesh by fasting for three days before the assembly elections. He intended to go on hunger strike whether his Jan Lokpal Bill was passed in the winter session of Parliament or not. He did not explain what the purpose of this new hunger strike was but it seems like no more than a move to remind his supporters that he must not be forgotten.
It should be clear to the average,thinking Indian that Annas ability to solve Indias huge political,social and economic problems is seriously limited. But,this seems not to have happened yet. The TV reporters who hotfooted it to Ralegan Siddhi asked tougher questions this time but the importance they gave Anna indicated that they have not yet seen the light. If they had,they would have noticed that Anna has distracted attention from our biggest and most serious problem. The economy. Nobody talks about it any more and it is about time we did.
Having grown up in socialist times,I get nervous when I see the smallest sign that the incredible economic growth of the past two decades is about to end. It is and the signs are no longer small. Since August,investors have sold $2.6 billion worth of Indian shares. The rupee has fallen against the dollar by 10 per cent since April. Indian industry has slowed down ominously and the forecast is bleak. There is talk of things getting a lot worse before they begin to get better so by next year we could see a huge increase in unemployment.
Government spokesmen have already started blaming the international financial crisis for all Indias ills but do not believe them. Indias problems are of our own making. Since April,when Anna went on his first hunger strike,senior ministers in the Government of India have been too caught up with political firefighting to deal with our real problems. And the Prime Minister has been too preoccupied with political infighting to notice that some ministers in key economic ministries have used their powers to reintroduce the licence raj by using government clearances as a weapon. Huge projects,in which thousands of crore rupees have already been invested,have come to a grinding halt. Nothing has been done yet to end this new license raj.
Anna and his team cannot see beyond their Jan Lokpal Bill so they have not noticed that if we return to the licence raj,there will be such a dramatic increase in corruption that a thousand Lokpals will find it hard to control. The corrupt officials that they would like to see sacked and jailed are mostly those who cut their teeth when licences,quotas and permits were the norm. Sadly,since most of Annas young supporters have no memory of those times,it is hard to explain to them that the real reason for corruption in India is because officials and ministers have too many discretionary powers. If Anna and his team had a broader vision,their movement would have demanded reforms that would reduce these powers.
The good news is that it seems as if Dr Manmohan Singh is not in danger of losing his job for the moment. Those who were fighting to get it have succeeded in disqualifying themselves. So the Prime Minister can concentrate,in this season when most Indians worship Lakshmi,to find his own ways to placate the Goddess of Wealth. If we go back to those bad old times when Indias economic policies created poverty instead of wealth we can be sure that by Diwali next year there will be nothing to celebrate.
It should be easy to understand that for a country to win the fight against poverty,it must first create wealth. In India this simple truth has only begun to be understood in the past twenty years when better economic policies gave us a hint of Indias enormous potential. Anna and his followers would have us believe that Indias economic growth was a sham and that all it did was create a corrupt mafia of politicians and businessmen who colluded to loot the country. This is complete nonsense. But,neither the Prime Minister nor anyone in his government appears to have the courage to challenge Anna.
Follow Tavleen Singh on Twitter at tavleen_singh
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